it's giving season

shit-gifts for all

My husband’s face said it all as he unwrapped the present from Jaffs, 6. Inside was a wooden carving of two figures embracing — kissing? — a heart blooming in the negative space between their spines. "Wow," said Noodles, processing the gift, "I love it!" 

Jaffs had been let loose in a HomeGoods to choose presents and, like the red-and-white Christmas lingerie Buddy buys his father in Elf ("for someone special" reads the shop display), had found that this romantic statue embodied some kind of feeling. It was a bare symbol, where an adult might obfuscate their feelings with a self-heating coffee mug.

It is time for the gift guides to roll out, targeted so no one is disappointed by their present. There’s lots to love, but it’s also an undeniable waste of money and materials and energy, all that stuff. We’re frightened by clutter, and it raises the stakes for gifts to be nice enough to belong in the house, when all we want to do is say “I LOVE YOU, I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOOOOOO.”

Gifts have a historic basis as a way to socialize (from one caveman to another: a tooth), express love (a lock of hair), and to strengthen diplomatic ties (for President George W. Bush, 300 pounds of lamb meat, courtesy of Argentina), and maybe we need to go back to just giving people hair. I suppose it’s considered wasteful, but I love nothing more than making a shit-gift for a loved one. A coffee mug of a forgotten in-joke, a stubby holder, kid-art socks or wrapping paper, and, for the fans, a life-size cardboard cutout of myself.

Jaffs and Scuttle are old enough to know about catalogues now, which is a shame. Their interests have become those of the Target merchandizing team, rather than the stuff of mad inventors. When he was 2, Jaffs asked for a giant candy cane and a candy-cane t-shirt last minute from Santa. The Home Depot lawn ornament that we wrapped and put by the tree is still one of my favorite-ever gifts. Scuttle wanted a giant toy “the size of Mary from Dory Fantasmagory” so we got her an enormous teddy bear that came vacuum-packed and had to be disembowled and restuffed in the basement on Christmas Eve to reach its full fluff. The good stuff.

This is my take: Children are better gift-givers than the rest of us in an age of optimized, researched and lab-tested gift guides. The good news is that even if they have 17 LEGO kits circled in the LEGO catalogue, they’re still mostly oblivious to what a person other than themselves wants. Jaffs previously picked me out a miniature curling iron from the school white elephant stall. "Because you don't have one!" he said, thrilled to have found the Perfect Present. For his sister, a wicker cowboy hat.

Kids choose gifts like crows: here is a stone, here a forked stick, here something sparkly, I love you I love you cawww. 

I get them the LEGO, but also a shiny rock, a fluffy chicken, scented erasers I love you I love you.

It’s how it should be.

🎄🎄🎄🎄🎄

You’re never safe even in your own home

Jaffs, giving me a “hair salon”: “Would you like me to check for ticks?”

You might think you’re safe watching a sped-up bathroom-cleaning video on IG but you’re not safe there either

Goodies

Tracey Emin has been doing interesting art for a long time, but you really can’t go past this interview in NYMag:

In the Manley family, we’re doing a funny tee Secret Santa this year and I, at least, am excited (it was my idea). There was an amazing good-tee thread on

Evil Witches Newsletter

recently, and inspired me to get this one, a self-shit-gift.

I subscribe to a LOT of newsletters, and one of the ones I am still stretching a paid sub for is

The Real Sarah Miller

because it never feels like a reaction to anything else being written or talked about. Here is “three stories about sugar,” with a good story about throwup.

Laura Elizabeth Woollett looked at the pay-to-play (podcast) author promo model in Australia for Sydney Review of Books, noting the way that all books publicity is bent to a large degree by who you know.

<3 <3