What was the last thing you made? What materials did you use? Is there something you want to make, but you need to clear some time for it?

In 2010, I made xmas photo. In 2011, I made metaphorical thingsthat were intentionally symbolic of relationships and history. In 2012, I made ice cream. In 2013, I made design. In 2014, I made “my room”. In 2015, I made the last line of Ice Cream Travel Guide, literally. In 2016, I made my annual holiday video. In 2017, I made another annual holiday video. In 2018, I made scones (from the Tartine cookbook)! In 2019, I made another holiday video!

See, there’s a theme! Granted, the most recent thing I made was actually two minor things—a hastily written draft chapter for a book that I saw for a call for submissions that had a deadline in 90 minutes AND writing for prompts during writing group. I cobbled both together in less than an hour. Sigh. That’s what happens when you give yourself principles of never losing out on opportunities. Carpe diem, as I used to tell myself over and over again in my twenties. With diligence.

But of course, since it’s that time of the year. The thing that I actually MADE was the annual holiday video. That is, half of it. The original concept was about talking to our past selves, inspired by this video. Originally it was envisioned as various scenes like January Chris talking to April me, April me talking to July Chris, July Chris talking to October Jenn, October Jenn talking to November Chris, and November Chris talking to December Jenn. But first, we’re bad actors (and comedians). And second, the editing is way off because I have no formal editing experience!

Then we trimmed it simply to 2019 us talking to 2020 us. Easily done. Quicker. With jokes inspired by Chris (I admit that jokes don’t come naturally to me). And so although we went through phases of Anguish (and moments of Christian Bale), we filmed all 2020 stuff. We added a few music tracks…and I put in placeholder audio clips for the moments that we need to film for the 2019 scenes. And so here we go!

The current draft feels pretty good for someone who lacks editing and acting ability. But hey, it’s the best we can do!

I am very excited. We’ll see how it goes when it’s complete hopefully by Christmas!