Sunday, December 7, 2014

A How-To Shopping Guide for Christmas


Don’t know what to get your loved ones this holiday season? Are you stumped about what constitutes an office appropriate gift? Maxed out your credit cards and are now shopping in your house for the best re-gifting options? Well, let me help you. Follow these fool-proof steps and you will be sure to illicit tears of joy from your friends and family as they tear into your very thoughtful and artfully wrapped present (Side note: I suggest that, when at all possible, alcohol be consumed before and during the gift giving presentation, by both giver and receiver. All gifts look 10 times better when viewed through the bottom of a wine glass, or if you’re in the Christmas spirit, a brandy-imbued glass of eggnog). 

Chachkies: Remember that one time your grandmother told you she liked snowmen? You know your aunt who likes to wear scarves sometimes? What about your father who likes to play golf? Take these tid-bits of meaningless information and run wild. Give your aunt so many scarves she can sew them together to make hot air balloon, fly away to the Land of Scarves, and become their queen. Make every present golf-centric so that your father eats, breaths, and thinks only golf, eventually just turning into a giant golf ball. Case in point, my grandmother now has so much snowman-related paraphernalia, it looks as if we are getting ready to entomb her, Tutankhamen style, so that, in the afterlife, she can be surrounded by an endless supply of pillows, sweaters, candles, pens, coasters, puzzles, and a million other items that are covered with white snowy men sporting top hats, carrot noses, and corn-cob pipes. I myself have experienced this kind of theme-specific gift giving. It may or may not be known that I am fond of cats. However, I think my “obsession”, as some people are want to call it, is driven by the constant bestowal of feline products. I am now no longer worried that I will become a Cat Lady but rather I’m sure that every cat pin, cat memo pad, and cat salt-and-pepper-shaker-set is driving me slowly insane. Much like my grandmother, I too will meet my maker surrounded by cat products, just like the Egyptians would have wanted.

Consumables: This piece of gift-giving advice comes courtesy of my father: Give people things they can “consume”, be it food or soap or mints or lotion. A useful suggestion that I continue to use. However, my father takes it to another level. Never one to skirt on quantity, my father has been known to ship several boxes of wine home from a trip to Tuscany, or buy town cars so large I’m sure you need a special limo driver’s license to pilot them. Our refrigerator is known to carry within not one, not two, but probably 10 blocks of various cheeses, each the size of a cement block. You get what I’m saying, bigger is better. So it comes as no surprise that when running downstairs to open our stockings, my siblings and I found plastic shopping bags underneath the tree filled with giant 2-gallon bottles of Pantene Pro V, a six pack of Ban deodorant, and enough gum to build yourself a little house to live in, like the witch from Hansel and Gretel. Show people you care by giving them so many industrial sized toiletry products that they could open their own kiosk in the mall. I find, the more you give, the more you distract from the underlying message of the gift, which is, you smell. Or, you could be like my sister and revel in the fact that you don’t have to buy soap or shaving cream for the next 6 months. 

Matchy-matchy: This gift is specific to the couples in your life. It could be your parents, a set of brothers, your grandparents, or your nieces and nephews all closely related in age. It has been a tradition in my family that my grandparents would give my parents and my aunt and uncle matching sweaters or dress-shirts. I adore this idea. I want my Christmas to look like a well-costumed event with mandatory uniforms. Plus, you can insist the receiver IMMEDIATELY try on their newly received pink wool pull-over or handsome blue and green checked button-down cardigan. Time for pictures! My grandmother loved, loved, LOVED the color pink. Mauve really was her favorite shade. It was a sentiment not shared by my mother and aunt. Still, their willingness to don their matching sweater vests really did remind me the true meaning of Christmas: do it with style. I, of course, am exempt from this tradition. I am isolated on an island of age in my family, separated by 10 years from my nearest older sibling and nearest younger niece. Therefore, my family resorts to my first suggestion, i.e., cat kitsch.

Re-gifting: My favorite thing to re-gift is candles. I’m just not interested in lighting things on fire in my house. I appreciate the idea, but unless you host parties, which I do not, I don’t need tea candles and meltable smelling wax in my kitchen. Plus, if you don’t use them, they collect dust in at a rate I am sure is contrary to the laws of physics. But, for some reason, most people have a little bit of pyromaniac in them. And this lust for waves of hot perfumed apple, cinnamon, pumpkin, and cedar wood has birthed an ocean of smells so great you might drown in your indecision over what candle communicates “World’s Best Mother-In Law” . Yankee Candle is out of control. I recently bought (I was out of candles to re-gift) some votive candles for a friend and I was overwhelmed with the selection. Food and plant smells are abundant, and expected, but more concerning are the non-tangible scents: Storm Watch, Be Thankful, Drift Away, and, my favorite, Angel Wings. Angel Wings?! Who is lighting cherubs on fire and then duplicating the smell?! If you’re unsure on what scent most says “I Am a Valued Employee” to your boss, go for a creative candle design. I have seen candles molded in every possible shape, from the Effile Tower to flying angles (again with burning cherubs) and even human body parts. Now you can give a thoughtful, custom-made candle stick to your passive-aggressive neighbor, the wax molded into the shape of their head. While others will see a pleasant exchange between friends, you both know it’s a subtle warning: if I have to tell you to turn down your Housewives of Beverly Hills Marathon one more time, acts of arson will take place. Now go light your face on fire. Merry Christmas!

Gift cards: To me, gift cards say so much, as in, they say exactly how poor you are at that moment. I cannot give these because I spend all my money on international travel….for myself. To give you a $5 dollar gift card to Target is tantamount to me confessing “I am not a responsible adult and I spent all my money on a three-day trip into the jungles of northern Thailand.” But, if you want to share with everyone exactly how much of your tax return is still left over from this past April, just go to the check-out of any grocery store and load-up on Apple, Barnes&Nobles, and Dunkin Donuts plastic gift cards, redeemable for the next calendar year at values of $10, $20 and $50 sums. I have to say, it would make transporting your gifts much easier. As it is, I’m wondering how I am going to stuff €100 worth of Italian candy and wine into my suitcase without it breaking and melting en route. (Side note: I once bought a very expensive box of Florentine chocolates as a present to give the mother of my then boyfriend. I was POSITIVE this was the most thoughtful gift I could give and I was sure I would be beloved for all time. However, when I finally gave her the box, the candies had melted, probably because it was summer and I had forgotten the chocolates in my bag, which I might have left in the car to bake in the sun, for 3 hours. You can guess what kind of gooey horror she unwrapped. Did I mention this was the first time I was meeting this woman? Things did not go well from there…)

Jazz hands: So, I’m an opera singer. Not a professional one, but in my head I tell myself I’m good enough to be in the chorus. The star of the chorus. If I auditioned. Anyways, I have found that offering to sing and entertain sometimes is the greatest gift of all. This mostly only works for my grandmother, but my mother has also been known to shed a tear after I finish my aria. Usually it’s after I sing a song from Madame Butterfly and my mother moans “Men are awful!” (Side note: If you don’t know anything about opera, it’s mostly powerful men doing terrible things to women who have no viable problem-solving skills, and everyone is singing about it, for 4 hours.) But my penchant for performing didn’t start with me. I give credit to my sister who once made my then 8 year-old-brother dress-up in a kimono so he could star alongside her in her self-penned “Dating in Japan” on Christmas morning. I have sung at birthday parties, family reunions, and, this year, I will reprise my one-woman opera spectacular as I take the stage at my grandmother’s assisted-living care facility. So, break out your xylophone, put on your tap shoes, and show-off your comedic skills by insisting people listen to you monologue for 10 minutes about  What’s The Deal With Airplane Food (I may have just recently watched all of Jerry Seinfeld’s web series Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee). And remember, there is no greater gift than the gift of forced audience participation, God bless us everyone. 

Happy Holidays!