I spuddle.

Well, looky here, it’s our annual, helpful Christmas gift-buying feature, brought to you entirely by ME. No sponsors are even slightly interested in my list although I hear that Gilette is looking for a new face for their razors. That sounded wrong (it was really just a dumb Tiger Woods reference because no blog post is complete without it) and now you are picturing me as some sort of hirsute woman with a five o’clock shadow at noon. I am not. I actually don’t have any facial hair that I can see so either my eyes are really bad (likely) or I just happened to get hairy arms in lieu of a hairy face. Now you are picturing me as someone with terrifyingly hairy arms and I assure you that they are NOT THAT BAD. In nearly every single one of my books, I use a scene where some poor girl waxes her arms, convinced that hairless arms are the key to happiness and she learns — each time — that waxing ones arms really just causes bruising and even some bleeding and permanent scars. The road to happiness does not this way lie. I just try to teach others through my own wacky foibles.

But what was I talking about? Christmas, that’s what. I was talking about Christmas. I would like you to know that I am COMPLETELY FINISHED my Christmas shopping and now have to stay away from stores to stop myself from buying a thousand more things that the kids would love. The trouble with my kids is that they are equal-opportunity fans of … EVERYTHING. If nothing else is available, The Bun will beg on his knees for the chance to own a grey sock or a tire gauge. The Birdy will scream in outrage when told that she may not actually have a lingerie laundry bag or a bottle of spray cleaner. They really really DO like everything. And if you were to give them ANYTHING, they’d be thrilled and the fact that they are equally excited about a dollar store stretchy dinosaur with a scary face as they are about a $100 dollhouse with REAL LIGHTS makes me want to buy them more and more things (um, of the dollar store variety) because sooner or later they are going to get savvy to VALUE and then the gig will be up.

But your problem is not my kids. YOUR problem is your wife and just now you’ve looked at the calendar and realized that HOLY SHITMAS, IT’S ALMOST CHRISTMAS! I love how Christmas sneaks up on menfolk every year. I swear that my dad wakes up from his long winter slumber on December 24th, scratches his head and says, “Well, any ideas for your mum this year?” I cannot count the number of years that I fought crowds and snowstorms in the mall, not to do my OWN shopping, but for my dad’s last minute hoopla. Don’t let that happen to you!

Here you go, five things that your wife would LOVE for Christmas, but only if your wife is exactly like me. If she’s not, I’ve no idea why you’d come to me for advice. How would I know what your wife would like?

1. A cardigan sweater. That’s right, that’s what I said. A cardigan sweater is what EVERY SINGLE WOMAN IN THE WORLD* puts on when she gets home and puts on her comfortable clothes. A nice cardigan sweater says, “You deserve to wear a nice cardigan sweater when you are at home because I love you.” A cardigan sweater is a HUG, god damn it. Because I say so. Here are some of my choices for CARDIGAN SWEATER GIFTS. Buy one for your wife. In her size. Do NOT buy an extra large if your wife wears a size 6 because she will not feel kindly towards you. Go to her closet, check the labels in her clothes, and buy the sweater in that size. Seriously. This isn’t rocket science, people. These sweaters are all from anthropologie.com, who don’t sponsor me, although they should. Free advertising for them! Courtesy of me.

The Small Packages Cardi

All Wrapped Up Cardi — this one looks like crap on the mannequin, but trust me when I say it’s adorable in person.   Or it is on the person of the model in the catalogue.   Looking at it on the mannequin makes me wonder why I liked it in the first place, but I did, so it makes the list.

Hues Unfolding Cardi — Again, this looks like crap on the mannequin, but over this frilly pretty blouse?   Awesome.

Enough of the sweaters.

2.   A Roots Leather Bag.

Here’s the thing.   Roots leather bags last forever.   Long after you are sick to death of this bag, you will still have it.   And guess what?   You probably won’t get sick of it.   If you are Canadian, you can buy Roots at both, well, roots.com and at sears.ca.    I know what you are thinking!   You are thinking, “But how can something awesome, in terms of leather, come from Sears?”   It’s a mystery.   I do not know.   But lo, a bag that I covet.   From Sears.   The advantage to buying at Sears is that there are coupons to be found all over the place.   Roots often has coupons, too, so do not buy before you’ve searched for those.   Just a tip.   I am NOTHING if not a HELPFUL SHOPPING SERVICE.

Roots Venetian Leather Bag in Black (Sears) — Oh, and FYI, these are made to be worn across the body, not perched merrily on the shoulder of your awful puffed sleeve wool coat, as shown in the picture on the Sears website.   Way to take a nice bag and make it look like crap, Sears!

Village Bag in Rustler Leather

3.   I do not know a single woman in the universe who does not love this movie**.    I do not know exactly why that is the case, but it is.   AND it’s on sale right now at chapters.ca.    Very few women would actively HATE this movie.     It’s just a good movie.   Period.    Note, the Colin Firth Pride and Prejudice = good.   The Keira Knightley Pride and Prejudice = Bad.

4.  Lately, and I have no idea why, I’ve been craving letterpress business cards.   There is NO REASON why I want these, nor is there a reason why the fact that they are often called “calling cards” makes me want them more.   But I do.   Maybe if I had these, I would start giving them out to people in my business and they would begin calling me, although I hate answering the phone and hardly ever do it.   Probably if they actually want to talk to me, they should e-mail me.   Phones make me anxious.   So if one were to get me CALLING CARDS, one should also get me XANAX to counteract the stress induced by the ringing telephone.

These fancy ones with two colours and rounded edges are so pretty.

And these ones are classic and also witty if you’re a writer.   Or an editor.

5.   Which brings us to the LAST CATEGORY, which is a big category and basically a grab bag of a category that fits the list of everything I might ever want for any gift-giving occasion.   The category is:   PRETTY.

That’s right.   PRETTY.    Here are some things that fall into the category of PRETTY just to give you some ideas because I am like Santa’s little elves, all balled up into one big slightly-hairy-armed package.

The Pink Coat.   This coat is sold out so you cannot buy one for your wife, but I know SOMEONE who bought one for his wife and that wife is very happy about the Pink Coat even if her mother did say, “Gosh, won’t that shade of pink make you look even more sallow?”   As though ANYONE WANTS TO EVER BE DESCRIBED AS SALLOW.    The wife in question is going to feel pretty in the coat regardless of how SALLOW it makes her appear because she loves the Pink Coat and wants to be generally a happy person who does not run around obsessing about how SALLOW she may or may not appear to be in pink.

This necklace is just flat-out pretty.   I defy anyone to not like this necklace.   Search “bookends” on anthropologie.com.  I don’t know why their links never work, but they don’t.   In that, you can’t link to a specific anthro page, just the main page.    Why?  WHY?

Does your wife need reading glasses?   I actually don’t, not yet, but am sure it’s just a matter of time.   When I DO, I will get something pretty.   Like these Dash of Sparkle readers:

That about exhausts my list of  FIVE THINGS TO BUY FOR YOUR WIFE FOR CHRISTMAS.   And it was WAY more than five, so consider the extras just a bonus.   I could have come up with a lot more, trust me.   Fantasy shopping is actually my sharpest, most honed skill.    I’m not sure that will every translate into anything revenue generating, but that’s OK because I’m a writer and you KNOW how well-paid we are.   Ha.   Ha ha.   HA HA HA HA HA.   HO HO.   HO.   HO HO HO.    MERRY CHRISTMAS EVERYONE!   ***

*  i.e. Me.

**  Based on a survey of 1.  i.e. Me.

*** And I don’t actually care if you don’t believe in Christmas or not because you are Buddhist or whatever, just think of it as a day per year when you can buy pretty things for other people and feel good about it, and if you don’t want to do that, there are thousands of worthy charities that you can donate to in lieu of buying gifts and no one would fault you for that.   In fact, this year, I made the kids come with me to ToysRUs where we carefully selected gifts for a four year old boy and a two year old girl who were from families who are down on their luck and I totally recommend, all kidding aside, that if you can, you do the same.   It’s part of what Christmas is all about, whether or not you believe in characters like Jesus or Santa or the pope or whomever.

Filed under: Five Thing Friday, Shopping