The Best Gift of All

If you’re a woodworker of any kind — weekend DIYer to pro-shop owner — I’ll bet you ten bucks you’ve already seen a dozen or more top 10 lists of holiday gifts for woodworkers.  Most of the items on those lists are pretty much the same: shop gadgets, tools you already have, things you don’t need or, all too often, things you just don’t really want. Tape measure?  Useful, sure, but I already have six scattered around. Saw blade wall clock? I’ll pass.

It’s great that friends and loved ones are thinking of us, but here’s the truth for most woodworkers: If the tool is useful to us, we probably already have one (or multiples). If we don’t already have one, then it’s probably something we don’t need or want.

Stocking stuffers are another story, as most of them are small, sometimes funny, and always welcome, especially something from your kids or grandkids that they really want you to enjoy. And you do, because they picked it out themselves and gave it with love.

But the thing we never get enough of, and always welcome, is the gift of time. Time to design a project we can’t get to because we’re at work all week or doing other stuff that doesn’t allow for personal shop time. And that’s something that’s true not just for hobbyist woodworkers, either — pros are building all week long, but it’s usually things that you’re making for someone else. It’s not something personal, not something you’ve been wanting to make, because you just don’t have the time.

So, how about this at the top of a gift list: a full weekend with no interruptions, no errands, and no chores. Just time to ourselves to make sawdust, to let our imagination and creativity take us wherever they lead. That’s a priceless gift and always cherished. That’s what we all really want, not anything from a list of stuff some non-woodworker (or AI content generator) put together. We don’t really want any of the things on those lists.

Unless clamps are on the list. We always want more clamps.