Deck the halls
I should first point out that I hate, hate, hate that there has been Christmas music playing on the radio since November 1st and that there was a Santa at the mall tonight. It's November 16th! Sheesh!! I am totally channeling Will in About a Boy with the "Santa's Super Sleigh" on November Bloody Nineteenth.
Tonight, I was again looking in vain for appropriate evening attire for an Executive Director's wife. Advice from my mom, one who knows: get fancy black pants and a bunch of different tops to rotate with them.
A fine idea, except I've had a ridiculous Goldilocks kind of experience as I try to find a pair: too expensive -- more than a THOUSAND dollars at Nordstrom! Seriously -- too shiny, too blatantly tuxedo-y, too short, too casual, too trim, too many buttons, too tailored, too flowy. I realize there are worse problems in the world, but oy.
And as I'm simultaneously looking for a black-tie gown -- I only have one, really, because one is only appropriate in winter -- I realize that, try as I might to branch out, I need to stick with the same style dress. There are dresses that are so darn cute on the hanger, and on people like my friend Jenni, that I simply cannot pull off. Strapless, or tops that are cut like they SHOULD be strapless even though they've sewed on little straps for modesty's sake, I guess, do not work. Fun flappery dresses do not work -- I just look frumpy. So same old, same old, which is another reason I would like to find me some good pants.
Wow, it's taking me a really long time to get back to my Deck the Halls point here.
Despite my grumbling about it being too early for Christmas, I got caught up in the spirit and turned my attention to a relatively new -- but I hope enduring -- Tangent Family Christmas tradition: The Dollar Store Gift Exchange.
Sometime in the mid-90s, I guess, my family decided it was really enough already with buying everyone gifts for their birthdays and Christmas, so we just picked names and bought for one person (although now everyone buys for our nieces and nephews, and now that there are seven of them, I expect that will be phased out over time, as well). In addition, we instituted a $25 Grab Bag, which has very complicated rules about drawing numbers and stealing other people's gifts and sometimes gets very ugly. It's also sometimes very sweet -- like when my dad knows that my mom really wants that fleece blanket, so he steals it from my sister so my mom can steal it from him, and then he somehow ends up with a picture frame or a foot massager or something for himself, but he's fine with it because he made my mom happy.
Anyway, last year, we instituted a similar exchange in addition to the $25 grab bag, and the rule for this one is that the gift must be purchased at a dollar store (I suppose a 99-cent store is acceptable, as well). Not just cost a dollar, but actually be purchased at a dollar store. I think my sister Carolyn initiated this one -- she and her husband just fell in love with dollar stores when they were poor med students, and they still get so excited that one can buy a SWEATER in a dollar store, for pete's sake (and, in fact, their contribution to the Dollar Store Gift Exchange last year was a sweater).
The range of gifts last year was just fascinating, from the practical (like the butane lighter that Smelmooo won, or a set of clothes hangers) to the absurd (the musical reindeer antlers my brother contributed). This year, we're doing away with individual gifts for grown-ups altogether, so I expect the stakes will be even higher for the gift exchange selections.
So tonight, I took a stroll through the Dollar Store, and I was actually at a complete loss -- there are so many options! I so enjoy the crazy reindeer-antler gifts, but you really can get some very cool, useful stuff at the dollar store, so I was torn.
And then I stumbled upon the most beautiful gift: a Luxury Ornament (by Flomo). The Luxury Ornament of choice is a peacock with a nine-inch tail (altogether, he's just over a foot wide). He has green glitter on his wings, and just a dusting of glitter on his crown. His tail is remarkably similar to the tassel I lost at my college graduation, but his body appears to have been hand-painted painstakingly in China.
The best part about the Luxury Ornament, though, will be if my mom gets him. Mom has still not quite lived down her selection of living room furniture for the house we lived in until I was nine: specifically, the sofas that featured peacocks strutting across them. Seriously. Tan couches covered in peacocks. My mom always protests that the sample in the store only showed the peacock feathers, not the actual peacocks, so she was duped. And honestly, I didn't really think that the peacock couch was weird -- at nine, I sort of thought everyone did the stuff that my family did, and why not have peacocks on the couch? -- although my teenaged siblings felt differently at the time, and were understandably mortified by the peacocks.
So I think it'll make Millie's Christmas if she picks the Luxury Ornament, and isn't that what the holidays are all about? Winning the title of best gift-giver?
Tonight, I was again looking in vain for appropriate evening attire for an Executive Director's wife. Advice from my mom, one who knows: get fancy black pants and a bunch of different tops to rotate with them.
A fine idea, except I've had a ridiculous Goldilocks kind of experience as I try to find a pair: too expensive -- more than a THOUSAND dollars at Nordstrom! Seriously -- too shiny, too blatantly tuxedo-y, too short, too casual, too trim, too many buttons, too tailored, too flowy. I realize there are worse problems in the world, but oy.
And as I'm simultaneously looking for a black-tie gown -- I only have one, really, because one is only appropriate in winter -- I realize that, try as I might to branch out, I need to stick with the same style dress. There are dresses that are so darn cute on the hanger, and on people like my friend Jenni, that I simply cannot pull off. Strapless, or tops that are cut like they SHOULD be strapless even though they've sewed on little straps for modesty's sake, I guess, do not work. Fun flappery dresses do not work -- I just look frumpy. So same old, same old, which is another reason I would like to find me some good pants.
Wow, it's taking me a really long time to get back to my Deck the Halls point here.
Despite my grumbling about it being too early for Christmas, I got caught up in the spirit and turned my attention to a relatively new -- but I hope enduring -- Tangent Family Christmas tradition: The Dollar Store Gift Exchange.
Sometime in the mid-90s, I guess, my family decided it was really enough already with buying everyone gifts for their birthdays and Christmas, so we just picked names and bought for one person (although now everyone buys for our nieces and nephews, and now that there are seven of them, I expect that will be phased out over time, as well). In addition, we instituted a $25 Grab Bag, which has very complicated rules about drawing numbers and stealing other people's gifts and sometimes gets very ugly. It's also sometimes very sweet -- like when my dad knows that my mom really wants that fleece blanket, so he steals it from my sister so my mom can steal it from him, and then he somehow ends up with a picture frame or a foot massager or something for himself, but he's fine with it because he made my mom happy.
Anyway, last year, we instituted a similar exchange in addition to the $25 grab bag, and the rule for this one is that the gift must be purchased at a dollar store (I suppose a 99-cent store is acceptable, as well). Not just cost a dollar, but actually be purchased at a dollar store. I think my sister Carolyn initiated this one -- she and her husband just fell in love with dollar stores when they were poor med students, and they still get so excited that one can buy a SWEATER in a dollar store, for pete's sake (and, in fact, their contribution to the Dollar Store Gift Exchange last year was a sweater).
The range of gifts last year was just fascinating, from the practical (like the butane lighter that Smelmooo won, or a set of clothes hangers) to the absurd (the musical reindeer antlers my brother contributed). This year, we're doing away with individual gifts for grown-ups altogether, so I expect the stakes will be even higher for the gift exchange selections.
So tonight, I took a stroll through the Dollar Store, and I was actually at a complete loss -- there are so many options! I so enjoy the crazy reindeer-antler gifts, but you really can get some very cool, useful stuff at the dollar store, so I was torn.
And then I stumbled upon the most beautiful gift: a Luxury Ornament (by Flomo). The Luxury Ornament of choice is a peacock with a nine-inch tail (altogether, he's just over a foot wide). He has green glitter on his wings, and just a dusting of glitter on his crown. His tail is remarkably similar to the tassel I lost at my college graduation, but his body appears to have been hand-painted painstakingly in China.
The best part about the Luxury Ornament, though, will be if my mom gets him. Mom has still not quite lived down her selection of living room furniture for the house we lived in until I was nine: specifically, the sofas that featured peacocks strutting across them. Seriously. Tan couches covered in peacocks. My mom always protests that the sample in the store only showed the peacock feathers, not the actual peacocks, so she was duped. And honestly, I didn't really think that the peacock couch was weird -- at nine, I sort of thought everyone did the stuff that my family did, and why not have peacocks on the couch? -- although my teenaged siblings felt differently at the time, and were understandably mortified by the peacocks.
So I think it'll make Millie's Christmas if she picks the Luxury Ornament, and isn't that what the holidays are all about? Winning the title of best gift-giver?
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