By Harris Vexley

Every December, Vermont's holiday craft fairs appear in converted barns, church basements, and community centers with the frequency and inevitability of snowstorms. They promise handmade gifts, local artisans, and that warm feeling of supporting your community. What they don't advertise is that they're financially ruinous to people like me—people with weak purchasing boundaries and crippling guilt about the local economy.

I went to buy one gift. One. I have a list. I'm organized. I'm a person who plans.

I left $340 poorer, holding four shopping bags, with gifts for people I haven't met yet and a pottery bowl I have no conceivable use for but which "really spoke to me" according to the woman who made it. (It did not speak to me. It's a bowl. But she was so earnest, and I'd been standing at her booth for seven minutes examining her work, and at a certain point you're morally obligated to buy something or flee the state.)

Let me walk you through my descent.

10:47 AM: Entry

The fair is held in a restored barn that smells of cinnamon candles and good intentions. There's a string quartet playing near the entrance—teenagers from the local school, probably doing this for community service hours, but still. It's charming. I'm charmed. My defenses are down.

A woman at the first booth is selling hand-carved wooden ornaments. Each one is slightly different because they're handmade, which she mentions twice. They're $18 each, which seems steep for something that will live in a box eleven months a year, but then I make eye contact with her, and she smiles, and now I'm holding one shaped like a pine tree.

"That's balsam fir," she says. "I carved it from a tree on our property."

I don't know what to do with this information. I'm holding a piece of her property. Her dead tree. She's watching me. I buy three ornaments. I don't have a Christmas tree.

11:03 AM: The Jam Table

I'm recovering from the ornament incident when I encounter a booth selling preserves. Jams, jellies, chutneys—sixteen varieties, all with handwritten labels. A man who looks like he's been making jam since the Carter administration asks if I'd like to sample the "Spiced Maple Pear."

I would not like to sample it. I don't even know what Spiced Maple Pear means. But he's already opening a jar and handing me a small plastic spoon, and now I'm tasting it, and it's... fine. It tastes like pears that went to business school.

"I make everything in small batches," he says. "This one took me three days."

Three days. He spent three days making this jar of jam. If I don't buy it, I'm essentially telling him those three days meant nothing. I buy two jars at $14 each. I don't eat jam. I'm lactose intolerant and avoid bread. I have no idea what I'll do with $28 worth of someone's three-day commitment, but at least I can leave this table without eye contact guilt.

11:24 AM: Knitted Items Crisis

There's an entire section devoted to hand-knitted goods. Scarves, hats, mittens, sweaters that cost more than my rent. I'm not exaggerating—there's a cardigan priced at $380, and according to the tag, it represents "87 hours of labor."

I'm doing mental math I don't want to be doing. That's $4.37 an hour. I'm now emotionally trapped in wage equity considerations at a craft fair. A woman notices me staring and approaches.

"That's alpaca wool," she says. "From a farm in Addison County. I can give you the alpaca's name if you'd like."

I don't want the alpaca's name. Knowing the alpaca's name will make this worse. But she's already telling me it's "Gerald," and that Gerald is "very proud of his coat," and now I'm complicit in Gerald's pride.

I don't buy the $380 cardigan because I'm not insane. I buy a $52 hat that I will wear exactly twice and feel guilty about both times—once for spending $52 on a hat, and once for not wearing it enough to justify $52.

11:48 AM: The Maple Syrup Situation

I've now purchased my fourth maple syrup gift set of the season. I don't know why I keep doing this. Everyone in Vermont already has maple syrup. Giving maple syrup to a Vermonter is like giving sand to a beach. But this booth has a tasting bar—a tasting bar for syrup—and I've now sampled four grades, and there's a man explaining the difference between "robust" and "delicate" flavor profiles with the seriousness of a sommelier.

"This one," he says, holding up a bottle of Grade A Dark Amber, "has notes of caramel and toasted wood."

It's tree blood. I'm tasting tree blood and pretending to detect notes. But I nod thoughtfully because I'm in too deep, and I buy the $34 gift set because at this point, what's another $34?

12:15 PM: The Pottery Incident

This is where things went irreversibly wrong.

I'm walking past a pottery booth—just walking, not stopping, not engaging—when the potter (artist? ceramicist? I don't know the proper term and I'm afraid to ask) says, "Feel free to hold anything."

I don't want to hold anything. Holding things at craft fairs is a trap. But she's gesturing to a table of bowls, and they're admittedly beautiful, and I pick one up because it's either that or be rude, and I've already been rude to three people today by not buying their items.

The bowl is heavier than I expected. It's blue-green with some kind of glaze situation happening. It costs $67.

"That's my favorite," she says. "The glaze is made with wood ash from my studio stove."

Her stove. I'm holding a bowl made from her heating source. This is too intimate. I should put it down. But I've been holding it for fifteen seconds now, which is long enough that putting it down feels like a rejection of her stove ash.

"I love the color," I hear myself say.

"It's called 'Celadon,'" she explains. "It's a traditional technique from—"

I stop listening because I'm doing financial math again. $67 is more than I've ever spent on a bowl. I have bowls. I got them at Target. They hold soup adequately. What would I do with a $67 bowl? Serve special soup?

"I'll take it," I say.

She wraps it in newspaper like it's a baby. I carry it like it's a baby. I have no idea who I'm giving this to. Maybe myself. Maybe the bowl is my Christmas gift to me, a reminder that I have no impulse control in the presence of artisan guilt.

12:33 PM: The Reckoning

I'm standing at my car, loading four shopping bags into the trunk, doing the mental accounting I should have done before entering the barn.

Three ornaments I don't need: $54
Two jars of jam I won't eat: $28
One hat from Gerald the alpaca: $52
One maple syrup gift set (the fourth): $34
Assorted "stocking stuffers" I don't remember purchasing: $45
One pottery bowl made with stove ash: $67
Total: $280

Wait. That's only $280. Where did the other $60 go?

I check my receipt. Apparently I bought a hand-poured candle that "supports bee populations" ($24), a set of lavender sachets ($18), and a wooden spoon ($18) that the vendor described as "artisanal," which I now realize just means "more expensive than normal spoons."

$340 total.

I still haven't bought anything for the people on my actual Christmas list.

1:47 PM: Contemplation

I'm home now. The pottery bowl is on my counter. It's objectively beautiful. It holds nothing but my regret.

The ornaments are on my table. I've texted three friends asking if they want to come over and help me justify buying a Christmas tree.

The jam is in my cupboard, next to last year's jam from last year's craft fair.

Gerald's hat is on my head. It's warm. Gerald would be proud.

I've learned nothing. Next weekend there's another craft fair in Stowe. I'll probably go. I'm weak, and Vermont artisans are relentless, and somewhere in Addison County, Gerald is already growing next year's hat.

Harris Vexley is a writer living in Vermont who has attended four craft fairs this month and regrets three of them. He's currently accepting applications for people who need hand-carved ornaments.

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