Shame on you!

Right now it’s to the point where you have to pull the pin and run… so just get them…

A Hand Grenade

Yes, you can be the proud owner of a live hand grenade, compliments of your nearest Army surplus store.  These make great presents for any occasion, as well as nice accents to your holiday centerpiece.

A Year of ______

Want to give a gift that lasts past 10 seconds of excitement on Christmas morning?  How about giving a gift that will keep on giving all year long.

Several flower shops will allow you to purchase a year’s worth of fresh, seasonal flowers, sent to your loved on every month for an entire year.  Try http://www.proflowers.com/ or http://www.ftd.com.

How about a year’s worth of car washes?

What about a massage every month?

Most services will give a discount if you buy in bulk… so take advantage!

To your favorite charity or non-profit

Having worked for several non-profit organizations, I can tell you that they sorely need your support, especially as we dip further and further into recession.  If you support the cause of a particular charity or non-profit, I would encourage you to give whatever you can this season to them.

If you don’t know of any, can I recommend two?

• LDS Humanitarian Services
  This is a humanitarian services / disaster relief organization run by my church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  When they say ‘the Mormons were the first ones here’ after a natural disaster, they aren’t kidding.  We have stockpiles of food and supplies located around the world which are mobilized sometimes days before an actual disaster hits.
• The Perpetual Education Fund
  This fund’s earnings are made into loans to students in developing countries.  They use the money to get a trade education and break the poverty cycle.  I was a missionary in Brazil when this program was announced, and saw firsthand the incredible power of this program.

The reason why I recommend these charities to you is because 100% of your donations go to the actual program.  0% go to the church or administrative costs.  These programs are run by competent volunteers.

If you have a favorite charity, feel free to post a link to it so we can all help out!

Live Animals!

Live animals make the best Christmas gifts.  Forget what the humane society says about how 90% of all Christmas animals end up in the pound… people like to hear a box rustle on Christmas morning!

Don’t want a dog or cat?  Consider some alternative animals…

A badger… (he really looks a lot fiercer than he is…)

A baby tiger… (cause it really worked out for Siegfried and Roy)

A tarantula… (look at how good he is with the little boy!)

A Hug

Make sure you show your friends and family how much you love them this year, not by the magnitude of the presents you purchase, but by the sincerity of your love.

Even Politicians need hugs…

And even fierce jungle animals need hugs…

Do it.

A Stick

There’s nothing as recession proof as cutting a stick out of the old oak tree in your (or your neighbor’s) yard to give as a gift at Christmastime.  May I suggest, though, that cutting a fresh stick on Christmas Eve sure beats the heck out of an old rotting stick you cut a week early just so you could be ready for the holidays earlier.

I can’t take full credit for this gift idea, though:

First, I’d like to thank the trees from which the sticks come. Without them we wouldn’t have leaves, sticks, or things for the wind to howl through when it’s stormy.

Second, I’d like to thank Reader and friend Erika for the following email alert:

I wanted to make sure you were aware that the stick…yes, the woody, organic picture in your mind…was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame this year.

“It’s very open-ended, all-natural, the perfect price — there aren’t any rules or instructions for its use,” said Christopher Bensch, the museum’s curator of collections.

I’m trying to figure how to get mine through airport security so it will be ready for Christmas morning!

Yes, friends.  The stick is back in style this year!  Really, it never goes out!

Just consider all of the things you can do with a stick.  Please comment with your favorite stick-related toy or thing you would do with a stick.  Mine is making bows and arrows out of sticks.

Art

Specifically, this season I would like to recommend prints from a series that I posted about a few months ago, Reflections of Christ.  I just got a print of The Resurrection, and it is absolutely breathtaking! Another great one for the Christmas season would be Angels.

Like I said, you have to be careful that you don’t give someone something that they will feel obligated to hang, but if they don’t care go for it!

What do you give someone who is lonely?

A Potted Plant!

Yes, it has been proven by independent, medical studies that people who talk to their houseplants are… … crazy.

… ha ha ha… you thought I was going to say “healthier”.

No, just crazy.

You  might be wondering: “How am I going purchase that <insert electronic device here> that my husband wants this year?”  Maybe you don’t have much experience in megapixels, contrast ratios, gigabytes and megaflops.

Never fear!  WhiteEyebrows is here with a solution to your problem!  This year, with the economic crisis sending some of the most craved electronics (products manufactured by Apple Inc.) out of your price range, you should consider making the single electronics purchase that you don’t have to know anything about anything to make…

Vintage Computer Equipment!

Yeah, Nerd is in, but are you sure your man measures up to the Nerd yardstick?  You want to test your man’s true nerdiness?  Get him a piece of e-junk that is over 20 years old and see how he reacts.  If he jumps out of his skin with excitement, you have hit the Nerd jackpot!  If he says, “I’d rather have an iPod,” you totally got a poser!

So where do you start looking?  Try your local Thrift Store or Junk Yard.  If no luck there, try online – but I’m warning you that Nerds everywhere will drive a hard bargain to part with their Apple IIe, TRS-80, or Atari.  (Mint condition, please.  At least throw in some original packaging or manuals.)

These items are quickly becoming collector’s items, and in 50 more years will be worth 1/2 of what you originally paid for them.

I love technology.

LEGOS!

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, Legos are the sure-fire way to inspire creativity in your children, train the next generation of engineers, and even give great pleasure to adults who like to build things!

Growing up, we played with Legos every Saturday morning while watching Saturday morning cartoons.  Me and my two brothers would spill out the lego bucket, and immediately start claiming parts.  Big Bro would always get the coolest hinges, windshields, and all the matching pieces.  I would always get stuck with whatever was left (making my creations INFINITELY more innovative and … well… interesting than his).  I considered it a good day if I had enough blocks left for a house with four walls, a car with a front and rear windshield, or a plane with wings that weren’t 2″ thick.

It’s hard being the baby of the family!

Tools

Everyone needs a good set of tools for when the project gets tough.

As my Dad used to say, ‘any job is easy if you have the right tools.’

Girly tools will not do.  My mom got a “Mom’s Tools” kit one Christmas so she’d stop borrowing (read: using and losing) Dad’s tools.  These tools were all very cheaply made, but would do for hanging a picture or measuring for curtains.  In an ironic twist, we’d all borrow (read: steal) “Mom’s Tools” from their hiding place in the buffet because they were always more conveniently located (read: we’re lazy) and you didn’t have to dig through 30 craftsman wrenches to find the screwdriver.  Eventually, mom’s tools got lost, too.  In fact, I think I still have the Phillips screwdriver from Mom’s toolkit.  (Want it back, Mom?)

Now, in the same breath we talk about tools, we have to talk about quality as well.  It seems like tools nowadays have suffered some terrible injustices at the hands of non-American manufacturers.  I had a hammer which, in the course of regular prying use, had the head totally bent off of it.  How can this be considered acceptable to the world?!  Hammers are supposed to be the manliest of tools, with the 20 pound sledge hammer coming in first place!

Then there’s my brother.  I’ll state up front that he’s basically God’s gift to automobiles.  He is the highest grade ASE mechanic there is, and they might even make up new higher grades just to keep challenging him.  (I’m just sayin’)  He knows pretty much everything about everything when it comes to fixing stuff… and he owns a butt-load of tools!  For reals, this guy’s tool chest alone is worth about as much as a most cars.  Many of the tools he uses cost more to purchase than the actual automobile he’s repairing.  There’s no one who appreciates a good tool (or who has as many tools) as my Big Bro.

Now, he’s allowed to have that many tools: because it’s his job.  …Just as I’m allowed to have 4 Macs in my house and a half rack of computer equipment in my closet, because it’s for my job, right? (…right?)

Well, as long as tools get lost, and as long as American automobile manufacturers keep cranking out crap, the tool people will remain in busines.

So here it goes, Holiday Gift Idea #1 for 2008 is….

…

…

A NEW CAR!

(Now go back and say it in the voice of Rod Roddy, the old announcer from The Price is Right)

A NEW CAR!

That’s right!  There’s nothing better to aide our ailing economy than for all of America to go out and purchase a brand new, shiny, American-made car!  (I say “American made” because many of these cars are now manufactured in Mexico……  And they’re Americans too, right?)

Not only will you be helping out three companies who have absolutely no chance for long term survival (no less, profitability… ha!), but you’ll be also investing in our National Security interest! (Which, by the way, is the dumbest excuse I heard all weekend for this auto bail out – as if we’re ever going to need to produce tanks like we did in WWII again…)

So do it!  Go buy a new car and invest in the future of poorly managed American corporations who are banking on you, the taxpayer, to continue funding their junkets, flops, and failures.

Can I get a head on a pike, please?

Christmas, after all, is a celebration of Christ’s birth; that “the Word was made flesh,” as John wrote. It is a celebration of the great step in God’s plan for the salvation and redemption of man.

I blogged earlier this year that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because of its gift-less gratitude, and in recent years I have been the “scrooge” of the family, poo-pooing the materialism and gimme attitude that seemed to accompany each holiday season. Perhaps it was because of the poverty I experience in Brazil, or maybe it was just because I couldn’t ever seem to come up with an idea for any present anyone could give me that I would actually enjoy receiving.

Today, I have changed my mind. Christmas, I have decided, would be incomplete without the gift giving. I believe that gift giving in the correct way is critical to achieving the “true spirit of Christmas.”

Why do I say this when gifts seem to be the most prevalant evidence of the “commercialism” of this season? (Which I still think is a problem.)

I have come to a realization that true gift giving is not simply a celebration of the bounty of the year. It’s not fulfilling each other’s needs and wants. It’s not being surprised or thrilled on Christmas morning. It’s not giving to charities or causes to feel better about ourselves, or get a break on the imminent tax return. It’s not about waking up early and seeing what the ‘haul’ is this year.

Gifts, at the most basic level, are tangible expressions we make one toward another. Some gifts express romance (think of the jewelry commercials), others express friendliness. Some we give in hopes to receive reciprocal gifts, and yet others we give to show our creativity or to see the look of surprise on the recipient’s face.

The tradition of giving gifts at Christmas didn’t start with the 3 wise guys who travelled from a long way hauling precious metals and spices, as many would ascribe it to. The tradition of giving begins in John 3:16:

For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

God was the first to give a gift at Christmas time. The gift he gave was his Son. The motive behind the gift was love.

Christ then grew and fulfilled his mission. He gave the greatest gift of all, his expiating sacrifice, which inexplicably and miraculously pays for our human flaws, drawing us back to God and his perfection.

These two gifts, gifts of true love, are gifts of self.

So this year at Christmas, consider giving an extra gift; give back to God the one thing we have to give, the only thing doesn’t come from Him in the first place and is truly ours to give; your will. Give something of yourself, your time, your life over to him. He promises that ‘he who loses his life for [His] sake will find everlasting life.’

…and it’s true.

However, if you are one of the unlucky few who still have gifts left to purchase, can I make a few final suggestions:

1. Stay away from Wal-mart at all costs.
2. Don’t go to Wal-mart no matter what.
3. Keep away from any store named Wal-mart.

Thank you and goodnight.

Re-gifting.

I know this can be taboo, but what else are you going to do with all the stuff you get that you don’t want?  I suppose if the person was “modern” enough to include a gift receipt, you can return it for the cash, but then when you have to turn around and find a gift for someone else, you have to put in all this thought and effort..

All that gets easier with re-gifting. Not only do you save money, and give life to sometihng you would never use or don’t care for, you also save yourself the pain and agony of having to THINK about another gift.