Usually when someone starts brandishing a glue gun at this time of year and talking about homemade wrapping paper, it brings me out in hives.
And by someone, I mean Kirstie Allsopp, who stencils and fills her own snow globe gin bottles and probably grows her own tinsel. Who’s got time for such stuff?
However, Stacey Solomon ’s Crafty Christmas, on BBC1 on Thursday, had a rather strange effect on me.
Perhaps it’s her childlike excitement or the fact she uses mostly toilet roll tubes, or maybe it’s because she says wise things like, “The minute you add a cranberry to something, it looks posher” – but I didn’t roll my eyes once.
Just like a cost-of-living-crisis fairy, Stacey vowed to make simple gifts and decorations that won’t break the bank.
No carving a block of ice with power tools or creating walnut dioramas (Kirstie, please stop) – these crafting tips were much more accessible.
The mum-of-four and husband Joe Swash each made a wonky Elf on the Shelf and jazzed up “the cheapest chocolate you can find” to make festive slabs.
The crafting queen spray-painted one of her kids’ old hula hoops and stuck some leaves to it to make a sophisticated-looking centrepiece and she and Rex, three, dunked old baubles into nail varnish.
She also made crackers with Leighton, 10, and stuck photos into curtain rings to create personalised tree decorations. At one point I even caught myself thinking: “Oh I might actually do that.” What is happening to me?
Brilliantly self-aware, Stacey’s also happy to mock the hard work in crafting.
“You’ll have to do this one thousand million times,” she warned, while looping wool to make garland pom-poms.
Other proffered advice included swiping all the make-up test samples in shops for a gift bundle and sticking ribbon on basically everything.
She told viewers: “Don’t let the chocolate go gross and gloopy”, and insisted “There is absolutely no technique” when decorating baubles.
She and her sister bickered as they etched chopping boards and not once did Stacey nag us to iron our napkins.
And if your heart wasn’t warmed by her spending a ‘craftanoon’ with the ladies at the local care home, you must be stone cold dead inside.
Normally by this point I’d be drinking (shop-bought) gin and wondering if I was a terrible human for not sculpting glittery candles for my friends (They’ll be pleased to know I haven’t).
But Stacey is the everywoman – a time-strapped mum with an excessive fondness for crepe paper – and this festive show was perfectly crafted.
