These days just about everybody loves at least one nerd. In many ways this is quite advantageous; you never have to worry about how you’re going to hook up that lovely new entertainment system when you get it home, how you’re going to recover a decade’s worth of pictures when your hard-drive bursts into flames* or what to do when the twenty page document you just spent the last month writing won’t print. This relationship, however, can become troubling at Christmas time when you realize you have no idea what this person would like or how to even find the things they’ve told you they would like. Sometimes I wonder if my husband has written his Christmas list in pseudo-jargon just to mess with me. Despite wish lists that might as well be written in a different language and my outright inability to understand technology, over the last ten years with my nerd, I’ve learned how to make him happy on Christmas morning. Continue reading
Christmas
For Somebody Else to Love: Re-Gifting Unwrapped
I am, admittedly, hard to shop for. This means that I get a lot of truly terrible gifts. It’s not so much that they are terrible gifts; they are just terrible for me. Friends and family think that they know my size or style when they don’t, they forget that my peanut allergy makes me unable to eat anything delicious, or they feel like contributing to my double-lifetime supply of lotions (seriously, who started this rumour that I am a very dry person?). Luckily, I am not above re-gifting. Continue reading
Can You Set the Table, Dear?
From the time I first entered my adult life until now, I have watched the traditional consistencies of my Christmases past fade away – as every holiday I have witnessed henceforth has been celebrated in a delightfully strange new way. From family members leaving us and joining us to graduating from the kids table to embracing a new family of in-laws, the way the holidays are celebrated by the modern twenty-something is ever-changing, spawning new and unique experiences and soon-to-be traditions every year. What if this is the year you find out you have gotten that big promotion to table setter as your grandmother hands you a weird briefcase full of her finest silverware, or it’s your first time dining with a boyfriend’s family and they have their own customs, different from that of your family, or, scariest of all, it’s your first time hosting? Luckily, we have cultural standards to rely on and save us from the embarrassment that comes from our inexperience. Continue reading