Gifts to Impress

In an increasingly consumer-driven holiday, giving a homemade gift is nice way of bringing a more personal touch to your gift-giving. Below, I offer up some ideas that go above and beyond making some crafty ornament or a tin of cookies.

The Gift of Life - Give blood or donate an organ. The easy way to do it would be to sign up for a list or go to a blood bank, sure, but if you really want the WOW! factor, get into DIY mode. Imagine the look on your loved one's face when they open up a package and see your kidney waiting inside! You don't need to be a phlebotomist or a surgeon, you just need an exacto (or utility) knife, alcohol, a cooler or fridge, and a bit of nerve. And don't think you can't get anything out of it - if you're really creative you can give yourself great decorative scars. Decorate yourself for Christmas by carving a Christmas tree into your forearm. It's the gift that keeps on giving! If you're really in the giving mood, why not hack off a whole limb? The technology for a bionic arm is already here, it's probably only another 20-25 years before it's available to the public. Surely you can live with just one arm for that long, if it means that your sister has a cool new coat rack for her room.

For Her - Two words - pubic hair. It's the next best thing to "Dick in a Box". There's no bigger turn on - really. You can take the least subtle route and place on on a can of Pepsi the next time she asks you for a drink, and sex is guarranteed. It worked for Clarence Thomas, right? Or you could be a little more clever. Remember the Victorian hair jewelry/artwork Caitlin talked about? Why not make a landscape or a potrait of her? (Note: The portrait will really only work if the woman you are trying to impress is the bearded lady - or one of those people with hypertrichosis).

For Him - Sorry ladies, vagina in a box is a little hard to pull off, not to mention a bit redundant. (Think about it - your "box" in a box?) So you'll have to come up with something a little different. Make a plaster cast of his penis. (He'll probably enjoy this step) Then you can make a mold of it, and make some wonderful items for around the house. Depending on his size, you can either come out with a nice set of salt and pepper shakers, a sinlge bud vase, or perhaps a poker for the fire. Another idea is for you to get some rubber and make a nice chew toy for the dog. Depending on your creativity and gusto (and the amount of objects you make), eventually he'll be so tired of seeing his penis all over the place, he'll be less likely to want to put it in your face. It's a gift that's a win for both giver and givee.

I hope these tips bring some joy to your giving and excitement to your holday season!

Nuts!

My house has one pecan tree in its yard. My mom's house has four. Every other year, these trees drop ginormous loads of pecans onto the ground below them. All we have to do is pick them up and - voila! Presents! There's a place here in town called The Nut House which will crack the pecans for you, so you don't have to go through the arduous process yourself. Some of you might be getting pecans this holiday season. Hell, some of you have already received pecans!

The Season Of Giving (And Getting)

My friend Ashley suggested that the topic this week be cheap homemade gifts people can make in order to save some dough. (I'll expand that to say feel free to talk about consumerism and Christmas in general if you want.)

As you all know, I am broke. I will probably be broke for the rest of my life. That's a choice I make. (Obviously I am not literally broke, since I am on a computer and not starving to death, but you know, perspective or somethings). So homemade gifts are something that appeal to me. Here's a few ideas for homemade gifts I have, and easy directions you can follow to make them yourself. Enjoy!

1 - Write a nice poem for the person to show you care about them - First, go to graduate school for poetry. Then, find a person you like and start to care about them. (These steps can be reversed). Then write a poem about them. In order to make it good, though, you have to complicate the issues and remove rhymes like "love, dove, glove" or "soul, hole, pole." Replace them with phrases like "a plant starves in winter," "Jupiter in the Heavens and the intricate map of asphalt on earth," or "I want to do it to your butt big time." Give poem to person. Actually, probably you shouldn't give poem to person. They will think you are totally weird and cheap. Unless you went the butt route. Then give the poem to person for sure.

2 - Bake a big double chocolate fudge cake - First, find a friend. Then, make sure his name is Glenn Shaheen. Then, find some recipe or something. Who am I, Emeril? Finally, give Glenn Shaheen the cake. You can leave now.

3 - Make a collage that isn't creepy - First, get a bunch of magazines. Make sure they are not Hustler, Penthouse, Jugs, Big Black Butts, Suffering Sapphotage!, Monster Cocks In Tiny Socks Quaterly, or *vagina: the journal of new experimental feminist pornography. Then, cut out some pictures that represent the relationship you share with the person. Try not to just cut out teeth or mouths or thumbs and glue them everywhere in the shape of stars. Then, paste the pieces onto a backdrop. If you are so broke you can't afford glue, try not to make a huge deal of how you used your saliva, tears, etc, to make the collage. Also, present the collage to the friend face to face. Don't nail it to their door, pet, or put it on their sleeping body in the middle of the night. Voila! Collage!

4 - Send an E-Card! - Just kidding. Don't fucking send an E-Card.

5 - Make some homemade jewelery - Perhaps you have 100 spoons like I do for some reason. Here's a great excuse to get rid of some of those spoons! First, get a small caliber pistol. Then, shoot holes in like 20 spoons. Try to hold them a little away from your face for safety. Then put a string or some other flexible slender thing through the spoons. There you have it! Christmas necklace! It's like the ear necklace in Universal Soldier. Remember that movie? (I really do have way too many spoons, though. I don't get it).

There you have it! Five cheap, homemade gift ideas from yours truly!

I only have one thing to say about Christmas and commercialism right now. I'm not a Christian, so the dereligiousing of Christmas doesn't bother me. On the other hand, I don't get upset when stores say Merry Christmas or whatever. But as you all know, my favorite holiday for candy's sake is Easter. They have Cadbury creme eggs, and the mini eggs too. And they hadn't infiltrated other holidays. But a couple of weeks ago Laurie (my girlfriend in Houston, not Laurie who posts here) came back from New York with some "Cadbury Ornament Eggs." We thought they might be minty on the inside, because that's Christmassy, but when we bit into them they were just regular Cadbury Creme Eggs. As much as I love those eggs, I was a little disappointed that they had made the leap. And they didn't even change the design of them at all! I mean, eggs? At Christmas? Easter is the thinly veiled pagan fertility festival. Christmas has nothing to do with eggs and fertility. Christmas is the thinly veiled pagan solstice festival.

Oh well, I'll still buy and eat them.