It’s holiday time. Know how you can tell? Well, if you’re a normal person, clues are obvious.

The regular Muzak in every public space is replaced with Christmas music; it’s the one time of the year when bills aren’t the most numerous items in the mail; and you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a holiday decoration of some kind.

But if you’re a woodworker, there are other, more definitive signs…

• Paying projects and commissions take a back seat to cutting boards and decorative boxes.

• You use the excuse of making gifts to order supplies and tools. (And it works!)

• You use the excuse of making gifts to get out of watching Hallmark Christmas specials. (Ditto!)

• The whole house smells like pine – and you haven’t cut a single piece.

• Nobody questions that you’re wearing a plaid flannel shirt.

• Friends you haven’t talked to in 11 months ask you to make something for a relative.

• There’s suddenly a lot more sawdust and wood chips in the dryer lint trap than usual.