22 tips for Christmas gifts

My apologizes in not writing for a bit.  I’ve been working on a disjointed mural these past few days as well as traveling to San Diego and now Tahoe.

The mad rush of Christmas shopping is quickly approaching. It’s been awhile since I’ve written a 22-Series so here are my 22 tips for gift shopping.  Good luck out there!  And yes, I agree, it would be nice to turn Ayn Rand during holiday season and not buy gifts but rather, give time.  Alas, how would we get gifts in return? ;)

1.)  Try not to use gift bags. Sometimes there’s no other way of doing it but to put the gift in a bag, but think of this: don’t you find yourself fishing around the bottom of the bag to make sure you got everything?  Oh the horror and embarrassment if there isn’t anything besides the one thing.

2.)  Include batteries.  Or if it’s pricy, include a case to protect it.

3.)  I’m a big fan of pairing gifts.  If you’re going to buy someone one of those mini popcorn machines, include a box of popcorn.  If you’re going to buy a smoker The Big Lebowski, include some green or a cheap robe.  If you’re going to buy someone a retro Polaroid camera, buy them a picture frame.  I bought my Charming Fellow an iPod one year and in the same stocking included This Is Your Brain on Music. 

4.)  Books, cds, and dvds are tricky.  If they want a certain one or are open to new things, then they might really enjoy the gift. Ex. If they liked Kill Bill, then they might like Inglorious Bastards. But beware, this can backfire.  I bought The Hang-Over for someone who had never heard of it and one of Obama’s books to someone I didn’t realize was a Republican.

5.)  Listen 2 months in advance for what the person might want.  The one of best gifts I ever received was a pearl necklace from My Charming Fellow.  He bought me the necklace because a few months prior I sent fake ones to a friend for her birthday, saying every sophisticated woman needed a set of pearls.  He liked the idea and surprised the hell out of me by buying me real ones.  The best gift I ever gave was a cactus cookbook to a friend I had gone book shopping with two months earlier who had held it in her hands, wanted it so desperately, but put it back. The next week I walked it and bought it and held it until Christmas.

6.)  Ok, no one likes those prepackaged gift you see at the store because they know you bought it last minute and it was probably the cheapest one.  Thing is, I LOVE THOSE THINGS.  A huge trio of hot coco?  Yes, please.  A useless juggling kit?  Sounds awesome.  The trick is to open the package, pair it with something, and wrap differently.  Ex. Someone opens up a kitschy box and finds a trio of hot coco with a newly-released movie. A new mom opens up a wrapped gift with a juggling kit and a slim, funny novel about juggling motherhood.

7.)  Don’t add to someone’s collection unless they mention it.  Just because someone has a house full of angels or nutcrackers doesn’t mean they want you to be the umpteenth person to buy them yet another one.

8.) Buy something someone has talked about for a long time but isn’t quite pressing enough to buy for themselves.  Ex. I’ll use myself for this one.  I’ve always wanted a pizza making kit, a frivolous huge bongo drum, a years-worth of Netflix, and a telescope.  Would never buy any of them for myself.

9.) Be wary of overused gifts, like lotions and candles and tools.  It doesn’t show much personal touch—even if the person would love to receive lotions, candles, or tools.

10.) Sometimes it’s nice to help out someone with a hobby with expenses.  Ex. Buy  an artist a new canvas and fresh brushes.  For someone who likes to bake, a quirky cookbook with flour and a bag of sugar.

11.) Gag gifts are great with the right age group.  I once bought UCLA alum ASU t-shirts one year and they bought me a UCLA t-shirt the next year.

12.)  Let’s be honest, we as Americans secretly love labels.  So even if you can’t figure out what to get ___,  if they shop at say, Urban Outfitters, buy something cheap from the store but wrap it in the Urban Outfitters shopping bag. 

13.) You can’t lose with giving alcohol.  Though knowing me, I’d still pair it up with something, like chips if it’s cheaper or cheese if it’s one the pricier side.

14.)  On tickets and gift cards: tickets are almost always a winner.  It shows that you know what they like, plus it shows that you want to spend time with them in the future date.  The only downside is that tickets are usually way in advanced, so it’s hard to get elated about something in summer when it’s still winter.  Though I bought Lady Gaga tickets in April and WAS SOOOO EXCITED EVERY DAY until August.  And gift cards?  Don’t do it.  Just don’t do it for Christmas.  Do it for their birthday.

15.) Fuck gifts and make something or bake something.  Nothing beats homemade treats. I’ve given out cd mixes to people, and back in the day my mom would buy glass flasks and made this holiday alcohol drink to give out to her friends.

16.)  Wrapping paper is so overpriced.  Head to the dollar store to get more intriguing (and cheaper) wrappings like boxes, or alcohol sleeves, or stockings.  I have this white patterned bed sheet I don’t need anymore so I think I’ll wrap my gifts in that this year.

Other tips:

17.)  Moms: Know what they want already.  They’ve probably been dropping hints for months now.  Ex. camera, perfume.

18.) Dads: Usually prefer quick functionality.  Ex. A hammock, cologne, a water gun to get rid of the birds outside.

19.) Siblings: Something funny, but at the same time they might want it.  Ex. Twilight    calendar (pair with the movie), belt buckle beer opener (pair with aspirin).

20.) Dating partner: The current hyped electronic tends to work best + something sentimental.  Ex. The new iPod with a cd of the band you guys saw in concert. A sporting good (ex. a new skateboard) or tickets (ex. to a local museum exhibit in town) also work wonderfully for those who are already over-loaded with the electronic world. 

21.) Roommate: Baked goods, alcohol. 

22.) Yourself: Go ahead and buy yourself that 2-ft long candy cane, or that on-sale classic movie box set, or that holiday beer sample six-pack.  Just use a coupon and feel the holiday joy, not the guilt.

My favorite book--The Giver

I'm going to begin writing my final thesis for my Archetypes on Children's Literature course soon, and since I'm writing on the archetypes of dystopia in Lois Lowery's The Giver series, I thought it was time to tell you about The Giver.  I hope you don't mind that this isn't a formal review, but a love note to my favorite book as a fan. 

The Giver is quite simply my favorite book.  I first read it for the first time in the 6th grade and again in the 7th grade, again in high school, again in college, and had it read to me in Mexico after accidentally overdosing on Advil after my muscles locked up from horse back riding for the first time in my life.  I've flipped through it many more times as well. 

Lowry, in the form of kid's book, creates the best use of dystopia/utopia I've ever come across in literature.  George Orwell's 1984 or Margaret Atwood's A Handmaid's Tale, or Aldus Huxley's Brave New World  or even the short story "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin are explicit situations of dystopia in which no person would ever want to live in those worlds.  The Giver is different.

The world of The Giver is a rather logical conclusion to the wants of society.  Lowry's world is a seductive one, without poverty, without the knowledge of death, without war or rudeness or broken families.  Family units care for one an other and society does well to fed and provide for its citizens.  Upon each citizen's 12th birthday they are assigned a career, based on the volunteering that person has done and their personality traits.  Everyone is content and happy.  Don't be confused that happiness is joy, however.

In return for a life free of debt, crime, illness, and fear the community long ago traded in color, and love, and holidays, and family by birth, and choice.  There is one person who retains knowledge and memories of the world before Sameness, The Receiver.  Upon Jonas' 12th birthday he is selected to become the next Receiver as the current one is retiring.

The old Receiver, whom Jonas calls The Giver seeing that the old man is "giving" Jonas knowledge, is not the quintessential archetype of The Sage as you may believe.  Oh yes, he is old and weathered.  He does provides guidance.  He is in the community to solve problems should one arise due to his wisdom.  But he is apart by choice.  He has a disdain towards the community that Jonas does not understand.  

Jonas begins to receive memories of the past and learns of mountains to sled down (traded away for better land for farming), and sunshine (traded away for controlled weather) and love and Christmas (traded away due to pain of loss).  Jonas becomes agitated with his friends for not knowing what love is.  He feels restricted by knowing a world of joy and sorrow and can't express it to his family unit nor to his community since they chose not to know so they can be content in their pain-free existence. 

He decides to run away.  When the previous Receiver-in-training quit the memories of the past flooded back into the minds of the community.  Jonas hopes that by running away his year's worth of memories will disperse back into the community and they will know what grandparents and love and joy really mean.

He flees.  It takes many weeks, but in the end he finds himself on top of hill with a sled in front of him.  Christmas lights twinkle below. 

When I read the book as a child it was so fucking clear to me how right Jonas was.  I too was agitated at his friends for not understanding.  I too felt the apartness of The Giver.  I could sympathize with the world lacking in death and chaos, but what is a world without love?

As I have gotten older I have seen pain.  I have been hungry when I didn't have the cash for groceries.  I have been freezing and shaking without heat and wishing someone could make it warmer outside.  Christmas is coming and presents I can't afford will need to be bought.  A war has been fought for 9 years now and no one seems to care.  Bodies are piling up, but no weapons of mass destruction have ever been found.  And I have seen death.  I saw my grandmother hooked up to IVs in the hospital with an oxygen mask covering her screams.  My grandpa on my mother's side slowly succumbed to liver cancer and I watched as his skin turned yellow and his words became gibberish.  My father died when I was 18.  Too many surgeries.  The holes in his intestine and bladder were sealed but he didn't take care of himself.  Blood everywhere.  I picked out his dark oak casket on a Monday.  And my future death--that scary question of what comes after if anything?  I wouldn't mind living in a world without these things.

And yet.  And with all of the hungry, death, and pain I've seen and have felt, I wouldn't trade love and holidays and sunshine next to a pool and snowy mountains with a hot cup of tea.  Despite the world, I would still run away with Jonas to Elsewhere. 

There has been much written about the idea of socialism in the book and I would personally dispute it to a point.  Sure, the argument can be clearly made that Jonas' community is socialist but since the solution has little to do with neither political nor economic structures, the argument appears almost mute to me.  What I do see it as it an alert for any political or social structure that requires too much sacrifice. Safety in exchange for privacy, anyone?  

There has also been things written about the use of genders in this community.  Play productions of this book have featured The Giver as being an old woman, for instance.  Perhaps it's not a coincidence that Lowry's next book in the series features a female protagonist. 

Which brings me to the end of this entry, and to honest, the reason I wrote this entry in the first place.  I'm going to be reading the rest of the books in the series for the very first time to gather up proper evidence for my thesis.  I don't really want to.  I want Jonas to remain on that hill, ready to sled down to meet up with a new family and a new life.  That's the funny thing about utopias; we don't have to grow up if we don't want to.  But I guess it's time.    

Vote.

"Throw dirt on me/ and grow a wildflower" ~ Lil Wayne.

I'm crushed this day after election day.  My I Voted sticker is on my bathroom counter, sad and losing its glue.  I won't go too much into politics here issue by issue, but I can say, with unequivocal disgust, what an embarrassment it is that only 25% of people in Arizona voted in this election. 

I walked into my house last night, weary from 3.5 hours of sleep due to writing an American Romanticim paper until 4am, waking up at 7:15am to finish up a fiction piece for my Literary Magazines class, left my house by 8am to drive 45 minutes away to vote in my district, then drove back to work an 8 hour day.  I walked through my house door with my work clothes heavy on my skin but my I Voted sticker grinning from my shirt.  

My roommates were sitting together on the couches peering at me like cheap entertainment as I walked up the stairs into the living room.  "You voted?" one of my roommates asked me incredulous.  "Of course I did," I said sharply.  "Why?" he continued in a sarcastic voice to the amusement of the crowd of my roommates.  "Because it's important," I answered matter-of-factly. "To who?" "To me," I answered simply.

I was getting annoyed.   Another one of my roommates said that voting doesn't matter since so many of the issues win by huge majorities.  "Sure," I said, "sometimes some issues are pretty fixed, but not always.  Sometimes it comes down to the wire and every vote does matters."  There was grumbling among things and more snide remarks, but the cynicism wasn't boding well with my sleep-deprived body.  "I'm glad that I voted.  I'm proud of myself."  I walked up the stairs without bothering with anyone's counter-remarks.

An issue everyone in the house cared about lost by 5,500 votes.  Every vote mattered.  Every vote counted.

Meeting novelist Lucy Hawking

At a children’s birthday party several years ago a little boy asked Lucy Hawking’s dad what would happen to him if he fell into a black hole.  Lucy Hawking’s father, of course, is eminent astrophysicist (and arguably the most brilliant scientist since Einstein) Stephen Hawking, and that precocious question has lead to two children’s books about space, with a third coming out next summer.

Lucy Hawking came out to Arizona State last week to talk about her two novels and the direction of space science within children’s literature.

A cute blonde woman with a thick British accent, Hawking talked to her audience as one friend might talk to another over a cup coffee.  Hawking had been working as a journalist in the UK when her son was diagnosed with autism at the age of three.  Along with the other challenges that goes along with autism, Hawking was concerned on how her son would be able to one day understand the principles of science and space.  The question at the birthday party inspired the answer.

Hawking had previously written two short stories, Jaded (2004) and Run for Your Life (2005) and called up her editor with the proposal of a story of a child traveling through space.  They were both surprised that little to no previous literature had been written on the topic and Hawking was soon at work with her father and her father’s colleagues to get a better understanding of different elements of space and how to best describe it to children.

The product was 2007’s George’s Secret Key to the Universe, an adventure tale about a boy called George who finds himself on a space shuttle traveling around the solar system.  Scientists and astronauts around George provide him with answers to how space works.  This book has since been translated in 38 languages in 43 countries. In this first novel Hawking wanted to focus on the creation of stars.

In the follow up novel, George’s Cosmic Treasure Hunt (2009), Hawking wanted to turn her focus onto space travel in general, with an emphasis on shuttles, rockets, and looking for signs of life outside of Earth. 

Hawking told the class that she recently fished her third novel (yet to be named) which will finish George’s adventures with the explanation of The Big Bang.

Hawking joked to the class “You can’t write “the end” at the end of your manuscript but I did.  I just described The Big Bang to kids, I’ll do as I like!”

She was also quite excited to share with us that George’s Secret Key to the Universe is set to become a live-action children’s tv series on the BBC in the upcoming months.

In taking questions from the audience she stated that she has never been challenged by creationists for her works.  She said that the books explain how things in space are, not “explain how they came to be that way.”  The character of Eric is based on her father, and the character of Annie is meant as a female scientist for little girls to look up to.  When I asked her if she felt that children’s books should focus more on fact-based issues such as space rather than wizards or vampires she said “No no, whatever gets children reading.”  While she said that her books are not meant to give importance to one school of thought over another, she does have subtle messages in her books such as unity and conserving the environment.

Hawking will be staying in Arizona for a few weeks as she tours her books around Phoenix classrooms as well as participating in Arizona State University’s Origins Project, where she’ll be researching the origin of evil within the history of literature.