The first of December is the start of the Advent season and at our house the bringing forth of the annual advent calendar. Advent means “coming”. The idea is simple: Count down the days in December leading up to Christmas Eve. Advent Calendars come from Germany where Christians marked doors with chalk and later created special calendars to count the days to Christmas.
When I was little, we had two Advent Calendars, one for me and one for my older sister. They were simple cardboard with pictures covered by little flaps. Each flap had a number, 1 to 25, marking the days until Christmas. My mother kept the same two calendars for many years and just switched them up. I’m not sure if that was because she was thrifty or because we needed to save the money. As a kid I always felt we had plenty of funds, but maybe not. My dad was a small businessman, selling ladies shoes in a small Wyoming town. While we lived comfortably, we certainly weren’t wealthy. Really, the repeat calendars were great because they served the purpose of starting holiday festivities early.
Nowadays, I get new calendars for my kids and my husband from Trader Joe’s. They are less than $2, filled with little pieces of chocolate and help mark the season and remind my family that I am the keeper of the family traditions. My husband eats all of the little candies at once. My son misplaces the calendar, remembers the calendar half way into January and gets a late Christmas treat. My daughter who is fastidious opens each box on the appropriate day and has 25 days of Christmas treats.
The variety of calendars is fascinating. There are basic picture calendars like I grew up with, legos, Hershey Kisses, beauty boxes, and varieties of tea. For those who want to celebrate the Yule Tide season daily, there are calendars with little bottles of whisky, wine and beer. For families who want to build a regular advent tradition there are expensive wooden calendars and hand sewn varieties which can be displayed prominently and refilled with treats and surprises every year.
If you don’t have an advent calendar by now it’s probably a little late to find one. But I would recommend putting on your shopping list for October/early November 2020. You can vote for President and then buy a calendar to hopefully celebrate ushering in a new administration.
The proposed North Pole agreement would be easy to enforce because Sara Palin could be appointed Nordic ambassador and provide enforcement services from her Alaskan front porch, pulverizing those pesky elves with buck shot when they tried to slip into the US in search of our highly coveted minimum wage jobs on dairy farms and in fast food joints.
10.Handrapants: These fingerless gloves (designed to look like men’s tidy-whities) are a perfect gift for anyone with fixation on being touched by real human hands but still wanting to be able to engage in real world activities. I actually own a pair of fingerless gloves that I find quite handy (please excuse the pun) but they are suede with a gorgeous fur muff around the fingers. The men’s brief design for fingers must meet some sexual fantasy of where the hands want to go.
9. WowWee: Chip is an interactive dog robot, programmable to a special watch (included). Chip will greet you at the door, follow you around, play with a programmed plastic ball and has a strange low woof for such a small dog. Chip doesn’t need to go outside, be fed, bark at guests, and tear up panties or the other assorted novel character traits of a real dog. He recharges himself during the night ready for the next day without having to be let outside or taken for a walk.
8. Unicorn Farts: These are bags of cotton candy. As I understand the design concept, while you can’t see human farts but you can see people, in this case you can’t see unicorns but you can see and actually eat their farts. Clever indeed and to provide further incentive for purchasing these tasty treats 10% of the proceeds go to a children’s charity.
6.Wonderwoof: This is an activity tracker bowtie for your dog. You and your dog can begin a new healthy life style in the New Year. Designed in stylish colors such as baby blue, red, orange, teal, pink, black, grey and for an extra $9.95 you can add designer bands to match your outfits. Before Christmas a tracker was a $100. Unfortunately, these guys didn’t sell out . You can now own one for $65. If you live in a big city and hire a dog walker, these little gizmos are for you. They are particularly helpful if you are paranoid imagining your highly paid dog-walker lazing around your high rise apartment sipping a latte from your cappuccino machine rather than out marching Fido around Central Park. One dog walker in New York reports taking 40 or 50 dogs for walks 5 days a week, spending about 25 hours a week and making about $110,000 a year. Take that you lowly U of I graduate starting out at best around $45,000 as a professional in Idaho. My advice, if you need Wonderwoof for Fido, you should probably consider trading in your dog and getting WowWee for Valentine’s Day.
5.Giant Inflatable Cockroach: Almost 6 feet by 6 feet and a foot deep, this ugly guy can either scare people out of your highly sought after swimming pool or provide a lovely floatation device for someone large enough to cover most of it. The roach’s legs hang out in any possible scenario. I have to admit to an aversion to cockroaches of any size. When my husband went to medical school the only apartment he could afford was roach infested. We had to buy dozens of tiny roach hotels to strategically place around the apartment in hopes one would stop by for a visit and be terminated.The Inflatable cockroach was judged the “best new inflatable toy for summer 2016″ suggesting to me that America needs to find new designers for pool toys.
3:Toilet Bowl Dog and Cat Fountain: If your pets like to drink out of your toilet and this grosses you out, this gift is for you. Shaped just like a toilet only smaller, the tank provides fresh water on as-needed gravity basis. Also works well for improving the self-image of height-challenged dogs, like dachshunds, which have always wanted to drink out of the toilet but couldn’t reach it.
2.Creamed Possum in a can for holiday dinner: This holiday treat is also sold out but may be available in time for the Super Bowl and Presidential Inauguration . A red neck staple, this tasty treat includes Canned Creamed Possum with Coon Fat Gravy, garnished with Sweet Potatoes! Guaranteed to be made with only the freshest road-kill available
My Private Idaho 