And now we can put our skills to greater use. Afghans for Afghans is an organization that takes handmade afghans (duh), scarves, mittens and sweaters and distributes them to people in Afghanistan (duh, again), where the weather is often very cold and, you might recall, has been war-torn for decades.

You provide the yarn and labor and they'll get your creation into the hands of some adorable small, previously cold, child or equally needy adult who could really use it. Their website has links to patterns and provides some guidelines. Yeah, putting a big picture of Jesus on the sweather might be a bad idea. But colorful yarns, stripes, funky patterns are all a go!

It's so very simple we don't even have that much to say about it. They note that their effort was inspired by the Red Cross which, during the two world wars, had formal programs for Americans to knit for the military.

If you don't know how to knit or crochet, you can also support them by buying some cool postcards. Or buy a pattern to give to someone you do know who knits.

The deadline to get your blanket into their next shipment to Afghanistan is January 14th - so get going!