@dearheart: I give to Heifer every year. Most of the animals are not for slaughter, they are kept for milk (cows, goats, sheep) and eggs (chickens, obvs) and their wool/hair (goats and sheep again) and I bet have very long lives. So unless you are a strict vegan, it's all good in the (extremely needy) hood for everyone.
As a frugal, cunning youngster I took to heart those cultural messages about how gifts with time and thought invested were worth more than gifts with only money invested. So I gave my parents charcoal drawings of something or other one year and was met with threats of getting drawings of everything on my Christmas list the following year.
@Products Will Save Me: I knitted cashmere socks for members of my family a year before Gwyenny was Gooping them to the world, and what sort of response did I get from my inlaws? "Oh. Socks."
I've been told they're repaying the gesture this year with Hanes' finest.
@howdybeep (runs with monkey wrenches): Ha! I just learned never to try to leverage my questionable artistic creativity to save money and that was that.
At length the hour of shutting up the blogginghouse arrived. With an ill-will Ebeneezer Denton dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant writer, who instantly shut his computer down, and put on his hat.
"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said Denton.
"If quite convenient, sir."
"It's not convenient," said Denton, "and it's not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?"
The writer smiled faintly.
"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no work."
The writer observed that it was only once a year.
"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!" said Denton, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. "But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning."
The writer promised that he would; and Denton walked out with a growl. The Gawker office was closed in a twinkling, and the writer, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), went down a snow-slide on Elizabeth Street twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran off as hard as he could pelt, to drink at happy hour.
@MisterHippity: Oops ... I need to make a correction to my excerpt from "A Gawker Carol" above. "Scrooge" should be replaced with "Denton" in the following line:
"And yet," said Denton, "you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no work."
I wonder how the name "Scrooge" snuck into my original draft? Must have been a Freudian slip.
I decided that this year I would save money and knit everyone I know a scarf for Christmas. Yay! Crafts! Except I spent $200 on yarn and now have no time to actually knit anything. So now the miserable bastards that constitute my loved ones are getting a few balls of yarn and my best wishes for the holidays.
@the_perks_of_being_a_wallflower: But they could sell the middle class with the slogan "As good as an HBO show without the extra charge on your cable bill!"
12/07/08
Oh wait, Twlight? No.
12/07/08
[gawker.com]
12/07/08
[gawker.com]
Let's get that page-view count up over 100,000!
12/07/08
I just wrap 'em up and give 'em out like candy canes.
12/07/08
(Oh, PM me if you want to swap.)
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Good one, Mom.
(No, I don't expect near starving people to follow my diet. It was funny and fucked up, is all.)
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I've been told they're repaying the gesture this year with Hanes' finest.
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Beef Jerky is peeeeeople!
12/07/08
Not that I'm asking about me, mind you. Just ... um, somebody I know.
(Mmmmm .... Cheetos.)
12/07/08
Humbug!
12/07/08
"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said Denton.
"If quite convenient, sir."
"It's not convenient," said Denton, "and it's not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?"
The writer smiled faintly.
"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no work."
The writer observed that it was only once a year.
"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!" said Denton, buttoning his great-coat to the chin. "But I suppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next morning."
The writer promised that he would; and Denton walked out with a growl. The Gawker office was closed in a twinkling, and the writer, with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no great-coat), went down a snow-slide on Elizabeth Street twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran off as hard as he could pelt, to drink at happy hour.
12/07/08
"And yet," said Denton, "you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no work."
I wonder how the name "Scrooge" snuck into my original draft? Must have been a Freudian slip.
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Maybe you could give your loved ones IOU's to go with the yarn for a kitten sometime in the future.
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