Tell you what, next year let’s start running the Christmas ads on Presidents’ Day and get the jump on the season for sure!
I don’t know, maybe it’s a sign of age, I just can’t get used to Christmas trees and packages before Halloween. Oh I know the economy is bad and folks have a lot less money to spend and the merchants have to make their profits for the whole year this next six weeks or they just won’t be here next year, but come on, before Halloween, really?
Yes, I have been called a grumpy old man and that was a couple of years ago when I was only grumpy and not so old and even though it is accurate, it isn’t because I’ve been taking my Scrooge pills, I just think things lose a bit of their luster when you start flogging them way back in October.
But it is getting to be that time of the year and I was wondering, have you decided what you are going to get your friends and relatives? You do plan to get them something? You can’t just keep re-wrapping the stuff you got at the church bazaar or dig out last years’ presents that you threw in the closet because they were truly horrible and no one wants a hand-painted tie with a hula girl on it even if it did come from your rich uncle Ezelle.
So what are you doing?
Oh mom is easy, candy or cakes, dad gets a Craftsman self-powered sonic screw driver straight from the Tardis and your brother Bob gets booze, not that he needs booze and maybe, just maybe he’ll show up this year without a silly smile and a wreath of holly on his head.
And then there are the kids.
Kids were always a sort of mystery to me. Until they get old enough to carry on an adult conversation or skip the family gathering altogether because they have to go off and smoke something you wouldn’t approve of with their no-good little school pals, what do you do with them?
Fortunately guys are simple; some variation of cars, girls and rock and roll will keep them happy. You wouldn’t believe it, but I’ve seen a twenty-three year old man with a wife and kids of his own fall in love with a radio controlled Hummer and very nearly run down the Christmas tree.
Personal music players are both cheap and you can get one almost everywhere. If you are brave fill them with real music and send them off to educate the harmonically challenged.
I sent my nephew, serving in Khandar, a MP3 player filled with music I transcribed from my scratchy old LPs and he loved it. He does speak jazz so it wasn’t a complete surprise, but some of his pals actually listened and swore off their rock and roll ways.
Okay, you’re right, I have been putting it off, what do you get the girls?
First, you cannot buy them anything to wear. If you do they won’t wear it and besides it is kinda creepy to be shopping Casual Corner and Foxmoor and sneaking a peek at the girls young enough to know what you are really there for and if they do you are likely to get reported to the Mall cops and then they’ll arrest you and you’ll wind up facing charges which don’t even need to be proven just filed and your neighbors will start burning torches and boiling tar.
And second your sister, their parents will file charges and if you don’t know what I am talking about re-read the above paragraph. So it’s best not to buy a girl clothes at all.
You could give them a gift card. That’s about as personal as a letter addressed to occupant.
Some girls like music as much as the guys so that’s relatively safe, but the truth is if you buy it it will be so passé that they will turn up their little pug noses at it. Not again with the gift card…
No most girls come fully equipped, it was not a lewd remark just read on, with a cell phone, only slightly more complex than the system used to get Neil Armstrong to the moon, an Ipod, Ipad, Kindle and maybe even a Nook or two. Laptops are so yesterday; tablets are the thing, silly.
No electronics are chancy.
But you are an artist; you can give them something no one else would ever think of. Your art, your art in a necklace which they will wear and will show their friends and might just show parents of their friends and you might drum up some business, but that is so crass when talking about a gift we’ll gloss right over it.
Okay, disclaimer time, I do not have any interest in Zazzle. There may be other sites and places where you can create gifts and wearables from your art; it just happens I know about Zazzle. So feel free to use any vendor you like. The deal is take your art, make a wearable that you could give as a gift and still be proud of the art.
I know I’ve given you this link before, but you might have lost it, so here it is again.
Try this page and see if you can work your art into the template. I played around with some of my own images and have to tell you I am pretty pleased. Simple works best I think.
Or maybe I should do one of the ones I have entered in a show?
Either way I think the look is nice and the price, $29.95 isn’t going to break Santa’s bank.
You can order this and have it shipped to your chosen angel and just billed to you so all of the effort you would have spent fighting your way to the head of the line at UPS, don’t even think USPS, can go into creating more art and that is what we are all looking for, a way to make our families happy and not compromise our own dreams.
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