Here’s a special Christmas treat! If you are a dullard, a grinch, a scrooge, or a violent felon, you may have been left off of the holiday greeting card list. Everyone’s holiday greeting card list. You sad sack of potatoes! Don’t fear! I’ve made some holiday cards for you to enjoy and use to pretend you have friends. Have a looksy!:
I hope by this day you’ve got all your gifts made or bought because if you have a JoAnn’s Fabrics trip to make yet, Lord help you. You don’t want to see the coupon hoarding and dented ornament grabbing that’s going on there. JoAnn would not be be pleased.
Having a barn wedding, like I am, can be very posh indeed: sparkling lights, fancy dresses, wine and cheese, dancing in the moonlight. But the truth is, people are gonna to have to go. You know…gooo. And although, with the crowd we’re inviting, the nearby cornfields would suffice, we made the call to get swanky and rent some port-a-johns. No expense is too great for our guests.
Patti from Chicago writes:
Q: I’ve been meaning to ask you this.. what can I do with old perfume bottles? This one is little but I just know there’s something cool I could do with it. I can’t bring myself to throw it away.
Kind of Smelly in Chicago,
Patti
A: Oh Patti, from nostalgic t-shirts to that part of the Kleenex I didn’t get any snot on, I’ve so often uttered the phrase “I can’t bring myself to throw it away.” Especially when it comes to things I’m convinced could have a brilliant “second act”. Just ask my collection of other people’s driveway rocks, or unpaired earrings, or gently used sandwich bags.
If you’ve noticed that the only food group in your diet lately has been Free Pasta Salads, don’t worry. It’s not a covert conspiracy between macaroni salesmen and Midwestern moms to take over the world. Alright, it is, but it’s also graduation party season. And in your mayonnaise dressing haze, you may have forgot that in exchange for the free food, you need to bring a gift for the recent graduate (if you’ve crashed the party and are having trouble picking the grad out of a crowd, look for the one giving off the ‘frightened and aimless’ vibe, usually characterized by nervous laughter and a constant darting of the eyes).
Although you are probably broke and your biggest gift to them is a human representation of life choices they should avoid, you should still put some thought into a present for them. As always, I’m here to bail your ass out. Here are some ideas:
Angie from Detroit wrote in with this little quandry:
Q: Dear Thriftfulness,
I am a crafty, thrifty, saves everything chica like yourself and like to give handmade gifts. But my boyfriend is a total minimalist. He doesn’t like accumulating “stuff” and pretty much considers everything but the clothes on his back and his iPhone clutter. The only thing he really collects is gadgets, but I can’t afford any of the stuff he likes. Boys have such expensive taste! Now his birthday is coming up and I have no idea what to get him. Help!
Sincerely,
Dumbfounded in Detroit
There’s an old Lorrie Morgan song called “War Paint” about (and this is just me attempting to interpret the many complex metaphors of this song) putting on makeup in order get back out “on the path” to pick up a new man. Battle preparation, getting ready for the bar, same thing really.
My own collection of war paint was outgrowing the travel-size carrying case I was holding it in. And we all know you can’t keep war paint locked away. If I wanted to be prepared for the war path (AKA, dinner date with my fiance), I was going to have to have my eyeliner at the ready. What I really needed was a Kaboodle, but I had given my last one of those away around the same time Lorrie Morgan married her fourth husband. What’s a warrior/girl to do?
I’ve become that woman.
I wake up thinking about table centerpieces; I obsess over which menu items seem the most “late-summery”; and I just finished an email where I tried to describe a color as “take like a mauve but more purple and then make Italian ice out of it, that’s the color I’m looking for”.
I’m getting married and it’s made me go crazy.
At first, I really didn’t think it would take too much thought. Love, a pretty dress, food, band, booze. Then I joined theknot.com and was told I had 349 things on my to-do list and 46 of them were overdue. I counted again: love (1), pretty dress (2)… (three hours later)… call to book guest hotel rooms (347), make seating tags (348), make sure my brother really isn’t planning on wearing a Superman Snuggie (349).
Oh @#%*.
I know it’s jeeeeest about getting to panic time for the holiday season, at least for us craftsters who planned on hand-whittling the state birds for each second cousin this year. But if you could all take a moment to think back in time, to those days before you swore off the shopping mall after getting in a fist fight with your sister over Tickle Me Mickey or whatever that thing is; before you stopped speaking with your in-laws over holiday schedule disputes; before you got too drunk at the office Winter Festival party and embarassed yourself again. Way back to a day called Thanksgiving. Ah, weren’t things easier then?
November is a big month for the fam. Thanksgiving, Mom & Dad’s anniversary, and three birthdays, one of which is MINE. I could drop $18 at Walgreens in the talking card section (and don’t get me wrong, I love me some Hoops & Yo Yo), but I’ve got paper and glue and scissors right here in my apartment. So I’m going to take the higher road to expressing my sentiments on paper, and spend my thought and time instead of my money. Suck it Hallmark.
Thriftfulness 