William is 13, and I don’t think there’s any avoiding the Gift Letdown thing that happens sometime around that age. Little kids want TOYS and they’re so EXCITED and HAPPY. Older kids can find there isn’t really anything they want, and if they DO think of things they want, those things aren’t as exciting as they remembered Christmas gifts being. It’s a problem. I combat it by talking about it all the time, until it’s possible I’m making it happen by discussing it.

Anyway, as we got closer to Christmas, William did manage to put together a list. I jumped on any idea that seemed like it was something to PLAY with, but a lot of his gifts were more like what an adult might ask for.

(image from Amazon.com)

Kinetic sand. Paul texted me from a craft store, saying William was riveted by a kinetic sand display. I looked into a few nice-looking kits with names like KrayZSand that came with trays and molds and so forth, but the reviews were poor: people were saying things like “Just get the real kinetic sand.” So I got what I hope was “the real” kinetic sand. Reviewers also mentioned helpfully that it was necessary to have a lap-sized sandbox if you wanted to PLAY with the kinetic sand, so I went to Target and bought a flattish $7-ish lap-sized 11×14-inch Sterilite bin with a snap-on-with-tabs lid (it looks like the shallower bins shown here, if you work better from a visual), so that the sand could be played with and also CAREFULLY-STORED-please-don’t-spill-this-all-over-the-house. This stuff is really cool and also definitely a TOY type thing. It would be a good gift for an adult, too. Two pounds, by the way, is not a huge quantity. Picture a one-pound box of brown sugar; now picture two.

(image from Amazon.com)

Water pearls / polymer beads. They’re tiny little hard plastic balls, and when you put them in water they expand to many times their original size: like, from the size of a small stud earring to the size of a small gumball. As they dry out, they shrink back down. William got these from Christmas last year or the year before, when I didn’t realize the things he’d seen on a cool YouTube science video were THE SAME THING as vase-filling water pearls, so I paid about four times the price for about 1/100th the quantity. Well, they were fun anyway, and at the time William was a little starry-eyed about Steve Spangler so it was probably worth it to get the branded ones, and actually now that I’ve bought HUGE GIANT CHEAP BAGS of the non-branded kind, I’m a little wishing we didn’t have so MANY. There’s one thing in the question section where someone says “How many beads does it make?” and someone replies, “I don’t really know, but I used a 5-gallon bucket and they overflowed all over the floor.” So, like, don’t make them all at once. Just a few at a time. Anyway, I got him a bag each of clear and assorted colored. They are less of a hit this time (the novelty has worn off somewhat), but still something to play with.

(image from Amazon.com)

Pusheen t-shirt. We are very fond of Pusheen around here, and this shirt happens to say the same thing William says when I ask him to unload the dishwasher.

(image from Amazon.com)

Spanish stuff. You guys helped me with this! I found the recommendations SO INTERESTING to read, and came away with that happy “the internet is people, and people are GREAT” feeling I always get when I ask a question thinking I’ll be lucky if one person knows, and instead there are dozens and dozens who know. We all have such unplumbed depths, don’t we? So many skills the others don’t even know about!

Where was I? Oh yes! So what I finally did was, I went with what his Spanish teacher recommended, because it sounded like there was nothing that was exactly what he was asking for, and there were a lot of people who added support to her recommendations, and it took away the issue of “Is it the same kind of Spanish he’s learning in school?” and so forth. Then I added two more things. So altogether I bought Merriam-Webster’s Spanish-English Dictionary, Barron’s 501 Spanish Verbs, a pocket-sized Merriam-Webster because I could picture him liking to keep that in his backpack, and a Spanish Word-a-Day calendar. I didn’t count all these against his gift budget, because frankly if he’d asked for any of the first three to help him in school I would have just bought them for him. If he sustains his interest, my plan is to add some of the other dictionaries/books people mentioned, because what I noticed is that a lot of the Spanish experts were saying they liked to have an assortment of dictionaries for different purposes and for getting different perspectives on a particular word, and that is how I would feel about it too.

(image from Amazon.com)

Sign language stuff. William is in the sign language club at school, and asked for some sign language dictionaries. My mom was an elementary school teacher and used sign language a lot for songs and programs, so I asked for her input—and ended up sitting at the table surrounded by books, hearing a careful run-down of the pros and cons of every single one. I finally chose the two that appealed to me the most while seeming the most generally useful: Signing: How to Speak with Your Hands, and The American Sign Language Phrase Book. The first one has been updated over the years, but the pictures are still drawings from the ’70s: turtlenecks, poofy hair on the men, etc. The second one has more cartoony/amusing drawings. The first one is more word-by-word, the second one is phrases.

(image from Amazon.com)

Sonic screwdrivers. My parents got these for him: the 10th and the 12th. We’ve had some bad luck with Dr. Who toys in the past, but William said, “I know these will probably break, but I want them anyway.” He’s in the Dr. Who Fan Club, and said he’d want them as costume props even if they stopped flashing and making noise. So far they are still flashing and making noise.

(image from Amazon.com)

Leatherman tool. I think this was the model he got, but I’m not sure; there are a bunch of different ones. This was my brother’s idea for him. William likes to take stuff apart, and Paul imitated him using his teeth and/or breaking Paul’s pocket knife on a flea market find in the car on the way home. The Leatherman has things like pliers and wire cutters and screwdrivers.

What do people do when they don’t have blogs where they can post their Big Upsetting Things and have other people kindly and efficiently dispose of all the upset feelings? When I compare the way I would have felt this morning with the way I DO feel this morning, I can hardly believe it. Really, thank you so much for talking me down. The whole comments section gave me excessive eye-watering.

Well! I suggest we talk about PRESENTS. I was worried to discuss them before Christmas, because I don’t really know if the children snoop my blog or not—PROBABLY not, but MAYBE. Also, in some years I’ve had a lot of fun doing gift posts, and this year for whatever reason it just didn’t seem fun, and also I put off the gift-buying later than usual. But NOW it seems fun. And I’ll tag them as gift ideas, and then maybe later I’ll get around to…organizing them…somehow…so they can be used in later years. Let’s not think about that right now.

Today I will work on Elizabeth’s presents, because I am most in the mood to talk about those. This year Elizabeth developed a sudden and surprising interest in walruses in addition to her abiding interest in cats, so you will notice a certain THEME to her gifts.

(image from Amazon.com)

Melissa and Doug Plush Walrus. When Elizabeth first discovered this gigantic walrus (30 inches nose to back flipper), I told her it was out of the question. First, I said, 30 inches was not as big as she was picturing (she wanted to use him as a backrest). Second, he cost over $100 on Amazon, plus more for shipping, plus he had a red warning that said he might not arrive in time for Christmas. Third, she has a tiny bedroom that is already PACK-CRAMMED with stuffed animals. No: too expensive, too risky, too big, not big enough, too many stuffed animals already. No.

Which is why it was so much fun to surprise her with it. I found another one for $65 with free shipping guaranteed in time for Christmas. I emailed Paul about it first: Are we seriously going to add a(nother) giant stuffed animal to the house. “Yes,” he replied. It is the hit of Christmas, and so soft and snuggly, and cuter than it looked in its picture. She has been carrying it with her everywhere, and it is definitely big enough to be a backrest.

This, by the way, is the best ever walrus for a REGULAR-sized walrus: Wild Republic Cuddlekins Walrus. I bought one a couple of years ago for Henry and kept snuggling it myself. If I can’t find it soon (WHERE COULD IT BE? could I have gotten rid of it in a fit of purge-cleaning?), I’m going to have to buy another.

(image from Amazon.com)

Cats in Sweaters calendar. I am a little annoyed to see it is now half off, but it also says it is “temporarily out of stock,” and in my past experience with Amazon and “temporarily out of stock” calendars, that means several emails in January asking me to confirm I still want it, and then an email in February apologizing that the order has to be canceled. We also got her a cat sweater from Gymboree, which I would link to but it’s no longer on their site.

(image from SewingSeed on Etsy.com)

Walrus Cross-stitch Kit. My sister-in-law really rose to the walrus challenge, and she’s the one who found and bought this for Elizabeth. It has started a cross-stitch craze at our house. William: “Cross-stitch is like PIXELS!” Today I have agreed to take them to the store, where I believe we will be buying one each of every single embroidery floss color available.

(image from Amazon.com)

Walrus books! She’d gotten a bunch from the library, but was saying she wished they were HERS and she could KEEP them. I chose Walruses of the Arctic, Walruses, and a used copy of Nature’s Children: Walrus (which has a much nicer cover than the stand-in shown in the listing, but our copy was Walrus AND Hawk, which was a little odd/disappointing).

(image from Amazon.com)

Webkinz orca. One of the reasons I put off gift-buying rather late this year is that I wanted to avoid buying things in September that they would no longer want in December. I mostly succeeded—but I bought this in September on a good sale when she was on a Webkinz whale craze and wanted an orca; by the time I gave it to her at Christmas, whales AND Webkinz were yesterday’s news. Oh well. Five dollars.

Poster-size photo collage of her cat. This cat is her dearest love. I believe if she could save only one family member, it would be this cat. SHE READS STORIES TO IT. Anyway, I chose a bunch of pictures of the cat and made a 20×30 poster photo collage on Snapfish. It was supposed to cost over $20 plus shipping, but during checkout there was a pop-up window that offered me 60% off, so I got it for $8-something plus shipping.

(image from Amazon.com)

Subscription to Cat Fancy. This was from my parents, along with a cat harness/leash because she wants to train her cat to go on walks with her. She doesn’t read the articles, she just likes the pictures. She cuts them out and puts them up all over her room. There’s also a monthly centerfold poster.

More on gifts later. Probably.

Those were GREAT ideas on the first Yankee Swap Gift Ideas post! I love when we end up making a reference section!

My mom and I went out shopping, and I found more ideas too, enough for a second post on the topic. And I chose one of the ideas, and I’m very happy with it.

(screen shot from Amazon.com)

(screen shot from Amazon.com)

1. Turbie Twists and a Wet Brush. This would be too expensive for the $10-15 range, but at HomeGoods I found a single Turbie Twist for $5, so then I could have combined that with the $8-10 Wet Brush for a perfect set.

2. Chocolate ornaments. We found these for $12.99 for a package of 45. They’re hollow chocolate, wrapped in foil that makes them look like ornaments, with little string loops for hanging them on a tree, and I thought that was something I’d never buy for myself but I’d LOVE to win: I’d hang them on the tree and the children would think that was pretty much the best thing ever.

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3. Coloring books for grown-ups. I have a paisley one I bought thinking it might be right for Elizabeth, but actually it was perfect for me. I saw several similar things while out, including books that looked like they were good for adults who didn’t know yet if they liked to color or not: sort of guided coloring, with little assignments. A couple coloring books plus the 50-pack of Crayola colored pencils would be perfect and fun.

4. A piece of fancy garland. We saw a bunch of these at places like HomeGoods: a six-foot length of greens and/or ornaments and/or other stuff for $12.99-19.99—more for putting over a door or around a railing than for putting on the tree, I think.

(screen shot from Amazon.com)

5. Grow-Your-Own Christmas Tree. I was telling my mom how my college dorm floor did a White Elephant Swap (where you bring something used or silly), and how I got very het up over a grow-your-own-Christmas-tree, and how I DID win it. Very exciting. However, that particular swap was RUINED by people “being nice”: “Oh, no, don’t steal it, she really wants it!,” etc. Swaps have to be RUTHLESS or else they are NO GOOD.

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6. Nice little cutting board. We saw some with pretty stripes of different types of wood, or ones shaped like various things (fruit, dog heads) (dog heads? yes, dog heads).

7. Glitzy candles. I saw TONS of nice candles, the kind where the outside is covered in sequins or glitter or little tiny beads.

(screen shot from Amazon.com)

8. Twig pencils. I’d get one bundle of colored leads and one of regular.

(screen shot from Amazon.com)

9. Turkish bath towel. My mom and I stood looking at one of these at Marshalls, just totally uncertain what we were looking at. It was packaged like a luxury item, and it said it was a towel, but it looked and felt like a tablecloth. Finally I said, “I don’t know if this could possibly be any good, but it makes me want to try it.”

10. I felt like we had a lot of really good options and I’d have been happy with almost any of them—but then we were in the checkout lane at HomeGoods and I saw a SALT TASTING BOOK: six little jars of fancy salt, in a package that looks like a book. I bought it RIGHT UP. It’s fun, it’s interesting, it’s useful. I might end up fighting for my own gift. They had similar books for jam (yawn) and honey (intriguing, but I liked the salt better).

What’s funny is, I realized afterward that the last time I shopped HomeGoods/Marshalls looking for a gift anyone might like when I didn’t know who “anyone” would be, I ALSO CAME HOME WITH SALT: Swistle must really love salt.

The wine-and-appetizers group I meet with every month or so is doing a Yankee Swap. I’m not sure how widely-known that term is, so I will briefly describe the set of rules I’m familiar with. Everyone brings an unlabeled wrapped gift (usually there is a set price range, or sometimes it will be specified that the gift should be something from your house you don’t need anymore). Gift-opening order is set randomly, such as by drawing slips of paper. The first person picks any gift and unwraps it. The second person picks any gift, unwraps it, and can either hang onto it or swap it with the first person’s gift. The third person picks any gift, unwraps it, and can either hang onto it or swap with either of the other two opened gifts. And so on. At the end, the first person can then swap with anyone. The whole thing is very unfair. I have enjoyed Yankee Swaps MUCH more since I learned to go into them expecting NOTHING BUT HEARTBREAK. My mantra is “If I really want that item, I can go buy it for myself.” Then I can just enjoy the hijinks, without getting EMOTIONALLY INVESTED.

ANYWAY. Our group has set the limit at $10-15. I’m inclined to browse HomeGoods or Marshalls and let something jump out at me: the real fun of a Yankee Swap, as far as I’m concerned, is getting to buy one of those things that seems like it would make a great gift for SOMEONE but it doesn’t seem right for anyone on my list, or else it seems like kind of an odd present (“Here, have a rainbow bouquet of spatulas!”).

It occurs to me that that although I prefer to get gift cards for teachers, some of these gifts would work well for teachers too: they meet the same “buying a gift for someone whose tastes are completely unknown” standards. But with a Yankee Swap, I think there is an additional level of Winning that involves “causing a sensation” and/or “bringing the gift people fight over.” So that enters into it too.

Here are some of my ideas so far:

1. Bottle of wine plus something else. Since we are a wine-drinking group and we are always making jokes about wine, I was thinking I’d get a bottle in the $10 range and then a $5 something: little box of nice chocolates, probably.

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2. Christmas earrings. I bought these for myself this year. I’m not sure this particular pair would arrive in time, but I’m sure I could find something in a store. Downside: so small, I don’t think people would be able to see them well enough to know if they wanted to compete for them.

(screen shot from Amazon.com)

3. Cute holiday labels. These are only $5, so maybe I’d get a few sets of them, or maybe the labels plus the perpetual calendar, or maybe get an assortment of labels at a store, or maybe get labels plus some nice gift bags and the super fancy bows that are like $2-3 each. I would compete for gift-wrapping supplies this time of year. But perhaps the idea is too much practical and too little fun.

4. Coffee mug, bag of coffee. But I think many people in the group get drive-through coffee, or have a Keurig. A similar idea would be $15 coffee-shop gift card. We have a new coffee shop in town, so that might be a fun place to get it from.

5. Nice bath product. This isn’t one of the ideas I’m going to use, because I think in my particular group the general spending level is higher than mine—so what I think of as “nice” (Aussie 3-minute Miracle) the others are likely to think of as “cheap drugstore.”

6. Something DELIBERATELY awful. I’m not sure any Yankee Swap is complete without the white elephant item—ideally something that can be brought back year after year. Heavily-jeweled letter-opener. Largish decorative animal figurine.

7. Fancy eats. I’ve been shopping for similar things for Paul’s sister’s Christmas box. I found some fancy teabags that come in little pyramid boxes, and a tin of Starbucks hot cocoa, and thin Swedish ginger cookies, and the little Lindt Santa-and-reindeer set that’s about 1 ounce of chocolate for $3, and so on.

(screen shot from Amazon.com)

8. The Good Mother Myth: Redefining Motherhood to Fit Reality. I have this on my own wish list this year, and all of us are mothers, and this sort of topic has come up before in our group. But I think I want something more FUN for the Yankee Swap: I don’t picture tipsy women fighting over this book.

(screen shot from Amazon.com)

9. Something wine-themed, such as these silly insulated wine glasses, or this glass with different levels marked for good day, bad day, or “don’t even ask,” or this collapsible wine flask, or the “Wine: How Classy People Get Wasted” retro metal sign. You would think we were a bunch of utter lushes by the number of wine-themed jokes we send each other on Facebook. I think playing into that theme would lead to an increase in fun.

10. Christmas nail polish set—something with sparkles and/or art pens. Most of us have at least one daughter, too.

11. Mrs. Meyer’s Iowa-Pine-scented stuff. They have this at Target. I could get a bottle of hand soap, a bottle of countertop spray, a candle.

12. A little live holiday plant. Our grocery store has a couple kinds of pine trees and also a little holly bush.

(screen shot from Amazon.com)

13. Page-a-day calendar. I’ve had this Metropolitan Museum of Art one for the past two years and have been very happy with it. But again, not something I’d think of as a HOT TICKET item.

That’s my preliminary list, before going shopping. I was wondering if any of you had Yankee Swap experience and could recommend Hot Ticket items.

[Also see Yankee Swap Gift Ideas, Post 2.]

I would like to recommend a hairbrush I bought because Temerity Jane said to. I mean, seriously: she said it was better, and I placed an order.

(screen shot from Amazon.com)

It’s called The Wet Brush, but that doesn’t mean you have to wet it down or that your hair has to be wet. I love it. It feels like it’s petting my head. I went from HATING to brush my hair to NOT hating it. I used it one time and dropped my old brush right into the trash, no regrets.

I bought the smaller one for Elizabeth, and since then have bought two more small ones because she loses them and I never want to have to use a comb on her hair again. The “color may vary” thing on the small brush is ridiculous: I want to CHOOSE. Target has a few colors (mine has purple, pink, and blue), or you can buy a big/small set.

What I WANTED to recommend was the fun patterned ones, like the Happy one I bought, because those would be so much better as fun gift ideas: you could do a cute patterned hair brush and some nice conditioner or something. But mine has PEELED:

This is not the result of hard use: I’ve used the brush once per day for 4.5 months, to comb wet, clean, productless hair. No blow-dryer, no 200-strokes combing ritual, no weird product residue on my hands, just regular combing. It feels dumb to replace it just because it doesn’t look nice anymore (and sometimes leaves little flecks of rainbow dandruff in my hair), but you can bet that when I DO replace it, I’m buying a solid color.

And I DO recommend the non-patterned ones as gifts: I’d either pair one with something related (expensive conditioner, hair accessories, the smaller brush), or else put it in the stocking.

The “studying Jane Austen because it’s mentally beneficial to have something to do” plan is going well! Here’s the order I did for Sense and Sensibility:

1. The movie with Emma Thompson, Hugh Grant, and Alan Rickman:

(image from Amazon.com)

2. The annotated book:

(image from Amazon.com)

3. Emma Thompson’s screenplay and film diary:

(image from Amazon.com)

4. The BBC series:

(image from Amazon.com)

It occurs to me that this might make a nice gift set for someone. Kind of expensive, but maybe just the thing for, like, your mom who’s so hard to shop for. It’s like a fun Jane Austen class kit. Maybe add a pretty teacup, and some tea, and some fancy cookies.

I liked both movie versions, but preferred the first one. This could be due to several things:

1. I saw the Emma Thompson one first. When I was reading opinions online of which version was best, it seemed like a lot of the arguments had “THIS ONE IS BETTER FOR MANY INTELLECTUAL AND LOGICAL REASONS” on the surface, and “I saw that one first so it seems Right to me” underneath.

2. I was familiar with (and fond of) the actors of the Emma Thompson one, and not with the actors in the BBC one.

3. I saw the Emma Thompson one before I read the book. This could be crucial: by the time I saw the BBC one, I was watching with a more critical eye. It seems to me that the Emma Thompson one more accurately portrayed the book—but that could easily be because when I saw it, I hadn’t yet READ the book.

4. As mentioned in #3, it seemed to me that the Emma Thompson one was much closer to the book. INTELLECTUAL AND LOGICAL REASONS.

5. By the time I watched the BBC version, I was getting a little tired of the story.

6. Maybe I just liked it better. That can happen.

I definitely recommend the annotated book, though now I would like to read ANOTHER annotation, because there were a number of places where I thought, “Oh, I’m glad I’m reading an annotated book so I can get an explanation for THIS!”—and then there WASN’T one. A careful definition of the word “mean” as in stingy, but no explanation of why it’s shocking for Willoughby to say “You are too good.”

I also do recommend reading the book (annotated or not) AFTER seeing the movie. It was so much easier for me to understand the book that way, and then the book is especially pleasing because it adds MORE: more characters, more dialogue, more interactions, more explanations. Really very pleasing and interesting.

Maureen and Nancy recommended Emma Thompson’s screenplay and diary; my library system didn’t have it, but I found a used copy on Amazon for $4.00 (1 penny plus $3.99 shipping). I only skimmed the screenplay itself; what I wanted was the DIARY. And it was completely worth it. It made me love Emma Thompson EVEN MORE, and was 75 pages of little details about the making of the movie: cast/director disputes and anecdotes, set/lighting/weather problems, kissing Hugh Grant, etc. It made me want to (1) watch the movie again and (2) be BEST FRIENDS with Emma Thompson. Very satisfying.

I’d thought I might go on and do more study, but by the time I finished the BBC movie (actually a 3-part miniseries, but I watched it like a movie), I’d had about as much Sense and Sensibility as I wanted for now.

My plan was to start right in on Pride and Prejudice next, but I got distracted by some books that came in for me at the library, and also a book I found at Goodwill, and also by a Shirley Jackson kick triggered by Shelf Love, and also by getting ready for company.

Elizabeth and I are back from our trip, and let me tell you, I am a little punchy today: there was a red-eye flight, and there was a significant time change, and anyway everything feels weird. Yesterday at this time we were one place! And now we are in a completely different place, feeling like it’s a different time than it is! Without sufficient sleep to process that situation!

Also, I am trying to catch up to usual life while also trying to undo the vacationy things, so I’m doing laundry and dealing with the mail pile and making a grocery list, and ALSO unpacking suitcases and processing photos and eating up the snacks we didn’t finish. I am doing this with the sheer willpower of coffee.

When I asked for advice about this trip, some of you advised me NOT to try to carry everything on our backs but to instead go ahead and pay the baggage fee to check a suitcase. Ever since I traveled across the country with an infant on my lap (which goes down in my personal history as the WORST WAY TO SAVE MONEY I HAVE EVER TRIED), I have been listening carefully to people who give me advice about traveling with children, and I’m VERY GLAD I did. It was not TOO much trouble to check a bag, compared to how much trouble it would have been to manage four (or even two) carry-ons. And then I didn’t have to take out a bag of liquids at security, or even LIMIT my liquids! I could take a whole bottle of sunscreen! My entire bottle of moisturizer!

As for how the whole trip went, I wrote a haiku for Paul and put it on a postcard:

Lost bag, canceled flight
Middle seat for eight hours
Still having fun time

Those eight hours were not all in a row, though they happened on the same day. The reason it was eight hours is that at 11:30 the night before our early-morning flight, the airline texted me that the second leg of our flight was canceled. When we arrived at the airport for the first flight (not knowing what else they expected us to do with that text), they told us Great News! they’d been able to book us on a replacement flight! We’d have a layover of over ten hours and we’d arrive at midnight instead of 4:00 p.m., but that’s okay, right? My strategy was to stand at the counter politely and in pitiful silence, with tears on the verge of welling up in my wide anxious eyes, until they came up with another idea. The ultimate solution involved switching us to another airline on a flight that flew right past our destination, then doubling back on yet another flight, but it got us there six hours earlier than the other plan so we did it and we said thank you very much for thinking of that clever idea.

Evidently our luggage went ahead with the 10-hour-layover plan, however, so we got it the next morning near lunchtime. Happily, I’d tucked a pair of underpants into each of our carry-ons. (On the way home, I added to the carry-on the three things I’d wished for while we waited for the luggage: deodorant, a comb, and the phone-charging cable. Several people/sites recommended carrying on a change of clothes for each of us, but I wasn’t willing to sacrifice that much carry-on room—and still wasn’t, even after we DID lose our luggage.)

The night flight went totally fine; in fact, it went better than the day flight. It was uncomfortable, but I was asleep for a lot of it so the feelings of discomfort seemed shorter. And there was so much less rummaging in carry-ons for snacks and activities, and so much less “child talking to me at 15-second intervals while I tried to read.” I was very glad to have our neck pillows, even though they were quite awkward to carry. I was also very glad neither of us needed to pee, because the guy in our aisle seat fell asleep and slept the whole way. The whole airplane-seating thing is unrealistic and wrong and doesn’t work. Here is another example: the way putting the seat back gives one passenger more space only at the expense of another passenger—who can get back that space only by stealing from a THIRD passenger. That is WRONG and should not be that way. Fix it, I say! FIX it!

Also, I can tell that I would not be able to work for an airport/airline without coming to see humanity as a herd of gross, inconsiderate, slobby jerks. Since one of my primary career goals is to avoid thinking of my fellow humans as gross, inconsiderate, slobby jerks, it’s a career I plan to avoid. (This is why I never want to work retail again if I can help it: it makes me think of my fellow humans as mean, self-centered, unreasonable jerks.)

The day flight was okay, too, but again our aisle-seat neighbor fell asleep. And that time we DID need to pee.

The best activity I brought was the Melissa & Doug Sticker-by-Number kit: Elizabeth used that more than anything else.

(photo from Amazon.com)

I also brought her a book (she’s been reading this cat-clan/warriors series and lovvvvvves it),

(photo from Amazon.com)

a reusable-sticker kit (it was too big for the plane, but perfect for at my parents’ house; I am planning to order one for myself, because I was jealous),

(photo from Amazon.com)

a guided coloring book (she liked it but I didn’t: I thought most of the prompts were too surreal and/or too hard to draw),

(photo from Amazon.com)

and this extremely odd book I can’t figure out (it’s a finding/I-spy type thing, but…strawberry mermaid bunnies?) but she loves it.

(photo from Amazon.com)

And my brother lent us his iPad, and Elizabeth played a Toca Boca game called Hair Salon 2 so happily and incessantly, my MOM downloaded a copy for HERSELF and the two of them played it side by side. At one point my mom, dad, and Elizabeth were ALL playing Hair Salon 2. It’s a fun game.

(photo from Amazon.com)

(An earlier version of this post originally appeared on Work It Mom / Milk and Cookies; I’m in the gradual and painstaking process of moving a number of them to this site.)

My attention was seized by this dilemma, written by commenter Kristin on another post:

Swistle have you ever done a list of gifts for the family holiday exchange? I kind of poked around your archives but didn’t see one. We do a Christmas gift exchange in our family, and the gift is supposed to be appropriate from anyone from my 80-something grandparents down to my 20-something cousin and everyone in between (basically once you are out of high school, you’re in the exchange). It stumps me every single year. And we don’t draw names in advance, so you can’t shop for a specific person in mind. Aieee!

Oh, dear. That takes the fruitcake for the worst family gift-exchange plan I’ve heard. I can see what they were trying to do there, but no. Names need to be drawn, or at the very least there need to be categories such as “for a woman” or “for a man.” Or else this needs to be done Yankee Swap style, where people can trade. However, I am familiar with the way family things typically work, and my guess is that you will have to be one of the old ladies of the family yourself before you’ll be able to change this, so we’ll work with reality the way it is.

I think Gift Ideas for People You Don’t Like (or the earlier and more crudely-named post Gifts for A**holes) is a good place to start, even though presumably you DO like these people and would NOT call them a**holes: those posts include ideas for general-recipient gifts, because the idea was to make the gifts NOT very personal–which is perfect for when you CAN’T make it personal. So there are some jokey things on the list (knives, trash cans, books that support a habit of self-absorption), but also those are indeed things pretty much anyone would have a use for. I can picture either a grandmother or a college guy being interested in a book like Picture of Me: Who I Am in 221 Questions or All About Me—and if they instead find that sort of thing self-indulgent, it’s an easy re-gift.

(photo from Amazon.com)

In fact, that reminds me: I have some experience with this. Last year I participated in a blogger gift exchange where we had to buy something for someone we didn’t even know. I went to the store and realized how impossible that was. So what I did was, I looked for something that would have wide general appeal (stationery rather than distinctive artsy vase; throw blanket rather than baby blanket; puzzle book rather than auto-repair manual), but ALSO something that the person could use as a gift for one of their own family/friends if it wasn’t something they themselves could use. I chose an assortment of ritzy holiday treats. I can’t remember anymore what exactly they were, but something like: box of fancy cookies, tin of fancy nuts, box of fancy chocolates. The recipient could eat those herself, or she could hand them out as two teacher gifts and a mail carrier gift. (My gift-giver also did a good job with this: she sent me two pretty blank journals, a mug, and a package of fancy imported coffee, if I remember right. I could use those myself, or any of those would make great gifts for a friend or a secretary or the bus driver or WHATEVER.)

So that’s what I think I’d aim for if I were you: not necessarily something that will please the recipient (though starting with something of general interest that’s likely to have broad appeal), but something the recipient can use as a gift for someone else.

Now, how about a list of gifts with wide general appeal? These work as Secret Santa gifts, mail carrier gifts, teacher gifts—gifts for anyone where you don’t really know the person and that’s okay because they know that you don’t.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Cute kitchen utensils! I have several of these happy spoons in various colors, and they’re great spoons as well as being cute. I also have/like/use: a toucan can opener, a peeler shaped like a bird, a porcupine scrub brush (I found it for more like $7-8 at HomeGoods), and a cute piggy spatula that’s the perfect size (it’s slightly smaller than a regular spatula).

(photo from Amazon.com)

Cute desk accessories! I have the yellow version of this chicken tape dispenser and I think it is even more charming in person. [Though, follow up: not so awesome at dispensing tape. It works fine, but the space between tape and serrated tape-tearing edge is not large enough for ease.] I have two pairs of woodpecker scissors because I love how they look but they’re also good scissors. [Follow-up: The spring started routinely popping off of one of them.] I don’t have this dog stapler, but I think it’s cute.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Branch pencils are fun, maybe with a sketch pad. [I’ve periodically seen the pencils at HomeGoods, TJ Maxx, and Marshalls.]

(photo from Amazon.com)

Which reminds me of the General New Skill Kit idea: almost anyone would be intrigued by a beginning drawing book/kit (I have that very one and it was really fun and neat) or the watercolor version. Or if your family happens to be a bunch of artists, perhaps they would prefer Harmonica for Dummies. Or perhaps you have a family of instrument-playing painters, but can they make things out of duct tape? or do coin tricks? At the very least, it seems like such a gift would create an interested little stir, and perhaps some furtive trading.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Reusable shopping bags! Most of us fall into two categories: (1) we use them and could stand to have a few more, or (2) we don’t use them but feel like we ought to. [Boy, I’ll bet THESE categories have changed since I wrote this. Now there is at least a third category of “we may or may not use them, but either way we own way more than we could ever use.”] And there are plenty of people who love them, so they’re easy to re-gift if we’re either (3) inundated with a million bags because we love them and keep buying them or (4) not going to use them so QUIT NAGGING. I was looking for a good sample one to link to and found this one that folds into a frog shape; I have no idea if it’s any good, but that is the kind of whimsical detail that takes a gift from boringly practical to fun and interesting. There’s also a pig, a duck, a mouse (it SAYS it’s a mouse, but I don’t think that’s a mouse, I think it’s a cat), and a bear—so you could buy however many you need to get to whatever people usually spend at these events.

(photo from Sees.com)

Box of candy! Again, if they love candy, they’ll be happy—but it’s a perfect hostess gift or friend gift if they don’t. My own fancy-chocolates heart belongs to See’s, but any fancypants brand would work well. Ditto for a snack of other sorts: fancy cookies, fancy nuts. Choose a good brand and then get whatever you can for the price.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Gift card! Yeah. Probably you’ve already thought of that, if it’s the sort of thing the family gift-exchange allows.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Good stationery! If we knew who we were buying for, I could have found a more exciting set. But good plain Crane stationery is the kind of set that can be used by a grandfather or by a college girl, by an aunt or by a brother. Maybe they won’t use it OFTEN, but good letter paper is good to have around.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Ornaments! Only you know if your family is more likely to have a general appreciation for iridescent glass snowflakes or for sock monkeys, for olivewood Bethlehem scenes or for bacon.

(An earlier version of this post originally appeared on Work It Mom / Milk and Cookies; I’m in the gradual and painstaking process of moving a number of them to this site.)

It seems from the title as if this will be a list of bad gifts, like “Give ’em a fruitcake, that’ll show ’em!!” or “How ’bout a DEAD FROG IN A BOX??” But no: this is a list that acknowledges that sometimes we have people we don’t like, and that sometimes we have to buy presents for those people anyway, and that sometimes those presents must be something perfectly nice and NOT a dead frog in a box. And we don’t necessarily want to spend a lot of time thinking about what the person would LIKE to receive, we just want to buy A Perfectly Nice Gift and get it over with.

These will, of course, also be Perfectly Nice Gifts for people you DO like. But what I’m aiming for here is emotion-neutral gifts that convey neither the false impression of love NOR the accurate impression of dislike. And also, because the longer you spend on such a task the more you’ll resent it, I’m aiming for gifts that will be widely well-received, so that you can pick one and not have to give it a lot of thought.

(photo from Amazon.com)

1. Puzzle books. I would get Sudoku, probably a nice big book like this one, and pair it with a smaller-format KenKen book like this one.

(photo from Amazon.com)

2. Magazine subscription. This is one of the best hands-off gifts: you don’t even have to touch it or wrap it. (Though if you want something under the tree, you can buy last month’s issue and wrap that with a note about the subscription.) I’d choose a general interest magazine—anything you might see in a waiting room. Amazon.com has good deals but you have to be careful: the best deals sometimes involve “auto-renewal”: when the subscription is over, it renews automatically, and sometimes at a much higher price. HOWEVER, all you have to do is subscribe, and then go to your Subscription Manager (in your Amazon account) and cancel the auto-renewal. So you can get National Geographic for fifteen bucks, or O for ten or Family Handyman for twelve, and then just remember to cancel the auto-renewal before you get an unpleasant surprise a year later.

(photo from Amazon.com)

3. Throw blanket. A throw blanket looks cozy, and most people can find a use/place for one. But I enjoy the way the word “throw” reminds me of “throw out” and “throw down” and “throw up.”

(photo from Amazon.com)

4. Knives. In some cultures it’s bad form to give knives as gifts, because they’re symbolic of cutting off the relationship. And yet, a set of good knives makes an awesome present. So they’re the perfect gift for someone you like—but they also have a pleasing undertone as a gift for someone you dislike.

(photo from Amazon.com)

5. Trash can. Heh. And yet, I’ve seen Simplehuman trash cans on people’s gift registries, so people DO want them.

(An earlier version of this post originally appeared on Work It Mom / Milk and Cookies; I’m in the gradual and painstaking process of moving a number of them to this site.)

Here is the problem: The twins have been invited to the birthday party of a little girl turning five. I need two presents by this weekend. I’m looking for things that cost about ten dollars, although less would be even better. I have a few things I’m considering buying, and I also have some maybes on the gift shelf.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Stomp Rocket Jr Glow Kit. My mom has a stomp rocket and the kids LOVE it. I would prefer to get one WITHOUT the “glow” feature, but the glow one is marked down to $7.20 [back then it was, while the non-glow was $15] AND comes in a “junior” version, so…

(photo from Amazon.com)

Crayola Telescoping Pip-Squeaks Marker Tower. Maybe it isn’t the same in everyone’s house, but at our house we have an endless need for marker replenishment.

(photo from Target.com)

Hello Kitty Shirt. [Originally this was a non-holiday Hello Kitty shirt. The one I got isn’t available now, and this is my favorite from the ones currently on the Target website—but if I were getting it for a birthday party, I wouldn’t choose a holiday theme.] This is my top favorite idea for Elizabeth to bring as a gift. Elizabeth LOVES Hello Kitty, and I thought it would be fun to buy two of these and have Elizabeth wear one to the party and bring the other one wrapped. Also, I happen to know the family isn’t rolling in money, so it might be nice to give something practical. [We did do this. It was especially fun because when Elizabeth arrived at the party, the birthday girl said, “Ooooooo, I love your shirt!!”]

And these are the things I already have on the gift shelf:

(photo from Amazon.com)

Paperoni Variety Pack. This would be a little more than I wanted to spend, except I bought it on a sale for $7.99 at Target a few months ago and put it on my gift shelf. But I hesitate, because my 9-year-old had a set of these and found them frustrating.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Pixos Alphabet Pack. At $16.99, this would be substantially out of my price range—but I found one at 75% off at Target a few weeks ago. Since the twins and the birthday girl are all starting kindergarten, a letter-themed kit seems timely and fun. She could make her name! But again, I wonder if this might be too difficult for a 5-year-old.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Melissa and Doug Magnetic Dress-Up Maggie Leigh. I think it might be too young for her.

(photo from Amazon.com)

Kittenwar: The Card Game. When I saw this in the Bargain Books section, I confused it with the Kittenwar Postcard Book, which is what I ACTUALLY wanted. The game is played like War: each player puts down a card, and the person with the higher-ranking kitten takes both cards. This seems fun but it looks SMALL as a gift.