I bought this Biology Is Bigger Than Binaries t-shirt for someone on my gift list, and I might buy one for a second person on my gift list:
(image from squidfacts.net)
The same place has an eel-facts advent calendar (frog and crab options too), if that sounds like it would be right for you or someone you know.
(image from squidfacts.net)
I bought a Disregard the Constabulary t-shirt for two people last year and one person this year:
(image from Amazon.com)
I bought three cookbooks from Paul’s sister’s wish list. The Potato Book, by Poppy Cooks:
(image from Amazon.com)
PlantYou, by Carleigh Bodrug:
(image from Amazon.com)
and The Complete Vegetarian Cookbook, by America’s Test Kitchen:
(image from Amazon.com)
She added that last one to her wish list after seeing it on my wish list, so I’ll bet we’re buying each other matching gifts this year!
Paul came to me with an important announcement: there is a Lego set that looks like our baby tuxedo cat, who is not a baby anymore but a big 2-year-old, and yet we still call him The Baby because he looks roughly like this:
(image from Amazon.com)
I said, “…Do you need that for Christmas,” and Paul said, “…No. …Maybe. …No.” If I DO get it for him, I will definitely get the separate (WHY WOULD IT BE SEPARATE?? THAT’S LIKE MAKING THE EARS SEPARATE) whiskers set, and maybe the lighting set.
I’m waiting in hopes that this Pluffle set will go on a good deal, and I can put it in the kids’/niblings’ stockings:
(image from Amazon.com)
We got a large amount (all one color) of this at the library for the sensory play table, and I am trying to think how to describe it. It’s like little teensy cheese-gratered shreds of memory foam or fabric, but then when you squeeze a handful of it, or move some of it, it has a surprisingly wide-spreading collapsing/moving effect that’s a little creepy. And it looks as if it might feel unpleasant to touch, but it doesn’t.
This is a great little flashlight! I bought one for Paul, who was sick of digging out his flashlight for a small task to find that the batteries were dead.
(image from Amazon.com)
If you have a charging station, you can leave it plugged in and then it’s always ready for a task or for an emergency.
Edward, who is interested in game design, has asked for the book How a Game Lives, by Jacob Geller:
I don’t know anything about it—but if someone in your life is interested in game design, perhaps they would like it too. And it was only published a week ago, so probably they won’t have it yet!
I’m looking for bookends for Henry’s dorm room (or else a small bookshelf). Maybe dragons, maybe cats:
(image from Amazon.com)
(image from Amazon.com)
I feel like this is the sort of thing where I might stumble upon the perfect thing in a consignment shop.
I recently rediscovered Paul Mitchell—a hair product line I loved in the late 1990s when I was heat-styling the hell out of my hair. I especially liked The Conditioner, a leave-in product. I bought a nice big bottle of it at Marshalls/TJMaxx, but since then I’ve enjoyed sending travel-size bottles to my similarly-aged friends for their birthdays. The wee bottles would also make good stocking stuffers:
(image from Amazon.com)
I don’t heat-style my hair anymore, but this is nice for tidying frizzies, and for feeling as if I’m doing something nice for my hair before I put it up into another ponytail/bun.
I have this goose/duck bag in my cart waiting for me to think of the right person to buy it for:
(image from Amazon.com)
Maybe YOU know the right person.
I wish I needed another notebook, but unfortunately I have a literal drawerful of them.
(image from Amazon.com)
Thayer’s toner is one of my favorite things-I-put-on-my-face-in-the-hope-it-is-doing-something, and I like to buy the cranberry-orange scent as a festive stocking stuffer, to use in the coming year for Tiny Secret Festive Season:
(image from Amazon.com)
It says “trial size” but it’s a nice size bottle (travel-size more than trial-size), and I like the spritz feature for when I am suddenly perimenopausally heated/flushed and need to mist myself like Blanche Devereaux.
My dad liked this Star Trek shirt. Maybe your dad would like this Star Trek shirt:
(image from Amazon.com)
Do you like postcards and are you considering getting a rose tattoo but can’t decide on one so you’re looking for inspiration? THIS ROSE POSTCARD SET MAY BE FOR YOU! (I have it and love it, and have not yet decided on a tattoo):
(image from Amazon.com)
I’m getting this Carhartt beltloop keyring for Henry:
(image from Amazon.com)
I’m also considering getting him a Carhartt duffel, after he came home on a recent college break CARRYING ALL HIS THINGS IN HIS HANDS, DROPPING THEM ALL OVER THE PARKING LOT
(image from Amazon.com)
(He got very into Carhartt after working a summer job on a landscaping crew.)
No but WHY ARE THE WHISKERS SEPARATE? Insert the shocked/horrified cat emoji of your choice here because that’s what I want to convey. Poor lego kitty!
THE DUCK / GOOSE BAG OMG.
Why ARE the whiskers separate? Baffling.
I am extremely intrigued by the Pluffle, and also fearful of how it would fare in a home with a cat.
Those cookbooks! I have a real problem about buying cookbooks and then never using them, or using just one recipe that I probably could have googled. But still! Pretty cookbooks!
I take them out of the library and if I find more than 2 recipes, I buy them. I have found two complete duds this way. The recipes were wrong.
Henry with all his worldly belongings in his hands was relatable. My college-age son comes home with all his weekend things “packed” in a reusable grocery bag. He’s studying Environmental Engineering, so I get wanting to save the world and all, and I do too, but… we bought you duffles AND a rolling suitcase before you went to college, dude. Boys.
Paul Mitchell! What a great throwback! Might have to get some of that.
I bought two of the Lego cats last year for people, and they love them! I wonder if either person would like a whiskers set. You will not regret buying the Lego cat.
I am dismayed to learn that my son will likely not grow out of the “making decisions like carrying all their worldly belongings in their hands” phase any time soon, ha/alas.
THAT TOTE. I DO NOT NEED THAT TOTE. BUT I DESPERATELY WANT TO BUY THAT TOTE FOR SOMEONE.
I love all of these ideas. But also, I wanted to note that we ALSO had a baby tuxedo cat who is now an 17 lb monster of a three year old, but also “just a baby”. It’s the most common thing we say about him, since he has these big eyes and innocent, smooth-brained gaze most of the time. His brother is decidedly not a baby, only Jack.
YES. Only our tuxedo is a baby, and I do think it’s the eyes and the gaze. He’s also the only one who, when we’re doing the cats’ voices and talking for them, calls me Mother.
Not related – please provide a cat update. Cat pictures are what we need at this time.
Ohhhh that bag. I also do not know who needs the duck/goose bag, but hope that it finds all the right people!
OMG! If you get the Lego cat, I think you should get the Loki’s shapers whiskers or the red and pink hearts version.
I’ve added the biology is bigger than binaries and the advent calendar to my recommended gift list.
I was actually gifted the cat bookends a few years ago in a writer’s group gift exchange, and they’re really nice! Cute but functional and just heavy enough.
It’s kind of like you’re torturing me by finding the coolest stuff imaginable that’s not available in my stupid country and waving it tantalizingly before my covetous eyes. Sigh.
These posts are so good, Swistle, I had more excuses to buy more friends gifts so I could fit all these in. Or that my family wasn’t doing ONLY Secret Santa this year rather than everyone buying everyone a little gift (a rule which I have already broken by getting everyone festive socks, so I really cannot add more to it…)