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| Drummer snowperson! |
1. Jelt Belts, for men and women, the no-show belt I've been looking for. If you, like me, have wondered why no one has continued to make those striped elastic belts with the d-ring metal clasp that we all wore in junior high, here you go, because the woman who came up with these thought the same thing. They are even one better, because the clasp is not metal, so you can keep it on when you go through airport screening. Also, Montana made.
2. Another Montana made product: compression socks from Vim & Vigr. These are adorable, not those horrible beige things that our grandparents used to wear. If you've never worn compression socks before, you will be surprised. I wear them on the plane, and those crazy "young people today" wear them for post-workout recovery, so any millenial athletes on your list will be appreciative, in addition to those of us with lagging circulation.
3. Highly recommend a trip to the hardware store or NAPA auto parts store for stocking stuffers. I just went by Ace Hardware this morning and wandered around until I had half a dozen things. The woman who checked me out commiserated with me that presents for the men in our lives are the worst, and she even suggested a couple of other things that I immediately went back and picked up (flares for auto emergencies-$2.99 each- and a lock de-icer for sleety weather, which I think was $3.99). You can always throw in a 2-pack of sharpies and a couple of bungee cords, too.
4. Spotify gift cards for the under-30s in your life (see previous discussion about spotify, #5 and 6 in this post). Unless you are already paying for their Spotify account anyway.
5. Buying a stack of books (meaning 3 or 4) for each of my family members has been a long-time tradition, and one of my favorite parts of Christmas shopping. In fact (who am I kidding) it is hands-down my favorite part of christmas shopping, and one that I happily devote hours to, sometimes to the point where I'm neglecting a whole lot of other shopping I need to do. But we now have our kids' significant others in the family Christmas scene, and they are not readers. I love them dearly, but *despair*, they are not readers. And I don't want them to feel bad about that. So this year, I'm ditching the traditional stack of books, and of course I'm doing it cheerfully, it's only here that I'm confessing to my sadness. But if you do have readers, a bookstore gift card is always an option. Or a book subscription from Page1 or The Bookshelf or Bas Bleu or any number of other similar sites.
6. Moment of sadness: I made my annual Small Business Saturday trip to the independent bookstore about fifteen miles north of here, the only retail bookstore in our area. I had a list of a dozen books I wanted, and because I'm increasingly concerned about amazon's dominance (more about that in another post), I was prepared to pay full price and buy all the ones I could find. They had exactly one of them. And this was not an obscure list. They just don't carry the kind of books I like to read. Of course, they would order them for me, but they are such snobs about it (admittedly, my biased perspective), I can never bring myself to do it. So I got online and ordered them from Powells and The Bookshelf. Also, what a world we live in when giving a Barnes & Noble gift card feels like a subversive act.
7. And lastly, this is not a gift idea but a recommendation for surviving the holiday rush, which is Harry Connick Jr's song "I Pray on Christmas"-- all of his Christmas albums are great, but that song is on When My Heart Finds Christmas, which I think was his first one. Here is Harry singing it (still the best), and here is a cover by an a cappela group, here is and here is a cover with a Norwegian gospel choir (under the heading: It Takes All Sorts). It's the perfect song for when you're dragging and feel like you just cannot do another holiday-themed thing. I pray on Christmas, you'll get me through another day, with full whoop-whoop gospel choir background. Sing it loud.
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