It’s that time of year again. Time to rush around frantically trying to get everything done before Christmas and pulling your hair out because you still haven’t completed your shopping.

You think the traffic on Highway 59 is bad in August? Try to get close to a mall or major shopping center on a Saturday in December.

Instead of all the hubbub, the holidays should be a time to slow down and reflect. There was a concerted effort last month to get people to boycott at least part of the commercialization of Christmas. In particular, folks asked people to avoid stores that started Black Friday sales on Thanksgiving.

To make the Christmas season less stressful, it would help to cut back on time shopping. At the same time, you want to make sure your gift is welcomed and appreciated. I mean the Chia Pet Willie is cute, but not everybody wants one of them. Nobody wants the present they spent time, effort and money to select for someone to fall into the dreaded regifting category. (I’m not sure if the Duck Dynasty craze will make it another Christmas so you might just be stuck with that Chia Willie.)

Now for kids, you will always have to shop for toys (or gift cards). Adults are different. I’ve reached the stage in life where I have most everything I really need already. We all like to receive gifts, but who wants something else to clutter up the house or closet?

My solution   go with something homemade from your kitchen. Who doesn’t like a batch of cookies or a still warm loaf of banana bread? What about sourdough bread starter? Can’t cook? No problem as long as you can measure. I know several people who have given uncooked soup – a Ziploc bag full of different kinds of dried beans, another pouch or two with spices and then the recipe. A quick internet search would come up with countless recipes and ideas. You could wrap it in a traditional box or put it in a brown paper bag or in a quart canning jar.

I’ve done this several times over the years. It’s not hard, but it does take some time and planning. Many years ago, I cooked homemade Worcestershire sauce and put it in half-pint Mason jars. Twice I have made Rum Vanilla “extract.” It’s amazingly easy. Take split vanilla beans, place them in alcohol (I chose white rum but any alcohol will do) and wait ... and wait ... and wait. Unlike the commercial process which is designed for speed, the home version takes about 6 months. The time was needed the first time to locate suitable brown bottles to hold the liquid. I ended up going through a company that supplied industrial chemicals to local companies.

The miracle of the internet has shrunken the world. When Kathy and I made rum vanilla in 2011, I was able to order a quarter-pound of dried Madagascan vanilla beans online cheaper than I got them before, buying them two at a time from the spice aisle of a grocery store (at a significant cost). The internet also helped me find the very same brown bottles, from the same supplier and they were shipped right to my house, cutting out the middleman and the associated markup. The cost savings allowed me to make four times as much for half the price.

This year, I decided to introduce my Gulf Coast Newspaper coworkers to something I have enjoyed for years – chili oil. It’s nothing more than light olive oil and red pepper flakes heated slightly so the oil is infused with not only the flavor and spice of the pepper, but also with the color. Once again, the internet lead me back to the same specialty bottle company.

The vanilla needed to be in a brown bottle to protect the contents from sunlight which could make it lose its flavor. Since it was 40 percent alcohol, it wasn’t going to spoil. Kathy and I wanted to make sure the new bottles were clear to show off the lovely red color of the finished product. It’s funny how minds think alike. Even though we searched the internet separately, Kathy and I both picked the same square flip-top bottles from the same company. They have a warehouse in Nashville and the bottles were at the house two days later. (Back to the idea of the internet shrinking the world.)

Normally I cook chili oil in quart batches, because it’s only for two people. Scaling it up to four dozen bottles brought some changes. I cooked it in gallon batches, which took longer than I planned. Luckily, I was not shopping on Black Friday so I had plenty of time. When each batch was done, I poured it into a large stock pot to ensure the entire run would have the same color and potency. A few hours later, looking at a large pot with three gallons of 250-degree oil in it made my mind race to medieval sieges and folks pouring boiling oil on invaders. I pushed the pot as far back as possible on the stove and let it sit overnight to cool. The next day, we bottled it, putting two scoops of pepper flakes in each bottle.

It is a simple concept but the recipients appreciate it. I realize it’s too late in the game for anybody to take my advice for this Christmas, but that’s the point. If you want to do something like this, go ahead and start planning for next year.

William Moore is the Senior Editor at Gulf Coast Newspapers. He can be reached at wmoore@gulfcoastnewspapers.com