What I do NOT want for Christmas

What I Don’t Want for Christmas (with a nod to Laurie Notaro)


Make-up or anything “cosmetic”. I don’t care if Ulta has the Bare Minerals starter set on special, if it involves the implication that I would look better if I would spackle my visage with goop and/or powders, please back away quickly. And, for the record, I got a good deal on Bare Minerals and apparently I am not girly enough to know how to put powder on my face with a brush. Because, I think a more “girly” girl would have known that you don’t put powder all over your face right after you put a thick layer of Carmex all over your lips. Wanna know what happens? Big fuzzy Muppet Lips is what happens.

Never again.


A portable clothes dryer. I kid you not. Now, I have great empathy for the ladies who hawk useless crap on the Home Shopping Network (as well as the other one whose name escapes me at the moment). How they can look perpetually excited about that junk is beyond me, but they manage to do it. Day. After. Day. After Day. Good for them, really, but on the rare occasion that something has looked like a good purchase I stop myself, the words of Mr. Potato Head swimming in my head, “it’s next year’s yard sale fodder, for sure!” I saw this item and was desperately trying to think of an instance in which one might need a portable clothes dryer AND have the means to carry it with ‘one’. You are on the run from an assailant and, as you attempt to hop over the puddle, you stumble and your trousers become soggy with puddle water. Who is going to have time to stop, slip off one’s trousers, find an outlet into which you could plug the damn thing in and then wait for dry clothing? Who is buying this?

A purse in the shape of a denim ass. Again, I am compelled to tell you that I “kid you not”. I only include this particular item because I have received it in the past and, since about twenty years have passed since that particular Christmas, it could be making the rounds once again. I distinctly remember opening the box and thinking, as I inhaled in horror and shock, “ohmygod, it’s a butt with a shoulder strap!” I couldn’t figure out what it was until the giver gushed, “It’s a PURSE! Shaped like blue jeans,…..you know, because you WEAR jeans!”

I said ‘thank you’ before the words spinning sardonically in my head could pour fourth. “Yeah, I wear a bra, too, but I don’t need a purse in the shape of THAT, either!”


I mean, “thank you! Thank you so much!”


I recently saw coin purses in the shape of socks at Bed, Bath and Beyond and I thought of her. I’ll bet she picked up a few as stocking stuffers.


Anything that plugs in. The only exception to this is the year Kirk bought me a KitchenAid mixer for Christmas, but it is because he knows I love to bake, not because he thinks that I should be in the kitchen, barefoot and gestating. I already have a paraffin warmer, so I don’t need anything else that needs to be plugged in. I can’t explain how satisfying it is to dip my hands into hot wax, it just is. Some things can’t be understood. (I am willing to make an exception for a Wii, but only because I really, really like you.)

Any cookie with nuts, raisins or fluorescent “fruit” in it. By the time I pick out all the nuts, raisins and “fruit” I forget what I was going in there for. Hey, Ritalin only does so much during the Holidays. The girls at work make fun of my Christmas Binder, but I gotta’ stay organized and I just have not been able to schedule in any time to pick out undesirable ingredients.

A Hilary Clinton nutcracker. I understand that there are people in this world who think these sort of things are cute and/or campy, but I really have no use for a nutcracker that involves placing a walnut near anyone’s crotch, real or otherwise. This is not a political rant. I don’t want an Obama nutcracker, a McCain nutcracker, or any other person shaped nutcracker if it involves them cracking nuts with their thighs, thankyouverymuch.

A gold glitter purse with mirrors attached. This was seen at a family gathering a couple of years ago. The owner said, “my husband gave it to me for Christmas”. (I am withholding the names to protect both the giver of this hideous gift as well as the receiver who was so inexplicably pleased with it.) Just as I was about to empathize and set her up with resources and the name of a good divorce lawyer she gushed, “isn’t it GREAT?! It’s JUST THE ONE I WANTED!” I looked on, stunned not only by the mirrors that were all simultaneously catching the light and making me feel like I had somehow entered an interrogation suite at a police station, but also by the fact that she was so incredibly happy about it. It was truly one of the few times in my life that I have ever been stunned speechless. (Which, if you knew all the snarky comments flying furiously around in my head, the loss of speech was a godsend!) The rest of the visit I tried to look away, but I kept sneaking glances over at the purse just so I could relay the details to my husband, who was out of the country at the time. If ever there was a lady of the evening searching for a handy way to tote around a gross of prophylactics with a convenient shoulder strap, this was just the conveyance for her!