O HELLO DEAR READER!
Is there a calendar conspiracy? How did it get to be so late in the month? It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by the holidays, but fortunately, there’s our Annual Impractical, Exorbitant, and Slightly Sanctimonious Gift Guide. With just a few anxious clicks of a button, you can still be a pillar of the holiday community. For example, there’s this thing described below:
Mumblety Peg Set
A sensation since the Victorian age, Mumblety Peg, is game where you throw knives at yourself! Played by such luminaries as Mark Twain, Ernest Hemingway, and Rasputin, now it can be enjoyed by your friends and relatives, and all their remaining toes!
It’s not so much played as endured. Sit on the ground, facing your opponent, and throw a knife as close to your foot as you can, taking turns. But just as in chess or checkers, you can automatically win by sticking the knife in your foot.
This handcrafted set from local knife-happy artisans includes two pocket knives and a scoring stick, which the loser must pull out of the ground with their teeth. What fun!
The Urban Shillelagh
Kyle Seelhan quit his job to follow his bliss and now crafts these elegant shillelaghs, which are either considered walking sticks or a weapons depending on the time of day, which he then paints in a jubilant fashion and sells o’er the internet!
We are so worried about him. His hands are all cut up from whittling and are ashy from the shillelagh -treating process. He seems so thin and his eyes have a glassy look. He never talks about himself, he only emails TED Talks at odd hours of the night. He tweets the same picture of Anne Hathaway looking confused, holding one of his shillelagh. Every time he tweets it, we become even more convinced that it was photoshopped and start looking for the clipping pattern. Every time we walk by his apartment the lights seem to be off.
But these festive fighting-sticks are marvelous! Each one twirls with precision, and is suitable for a morning brawl at the local pub!
A Year on an Island
Strand a loved one on an island for a year. With vegan and food-allergy sensitive rations, finally you can really choose what five albums you’d bring with you. Not for those who may be squeamish about defending themselves from wild boars or ghosts.
Cashmere and Silk Tasseled Burp Cloth
Ideal for your baby or your friend who’s had a few, this cashmere and silk burp cloth is soft and smooth, to soak up milksnot. Gross!
Scotchbucha
The libation with the mother in every glass is brewed by combining green tea and malted barley and then aging them in the hills of Scotland for three years. It has the smooth burning sensation of scotch, the spider-shit smell of Kombucha, and it feels like seltzer water having the night sweats in your throat. Just perfect for your drinky yoga friend, and by that, I mean me.
Alabaster Espresso Set
King Tutankhaman had an alabaster chalice to see him into the afterlife, but these alabaster espresso cups will see your loved ones into the waking hours of the day, when they probably just wish they were dead. A perfect wake-me-up after too much Scotchbucha.
Black Cashmere Turtleneck with Ivory and Silk Appliqué
Applique is having a moment. Why not let that moment hang in someone’s closet for most of the year? Then it’s contained, at least.
Lucite Cube Encased in a Lucite Cube
Lucite cubes can hold autographed baseballs, rare stamps, coins, almost anything. But this one houses another lucite cube, in defiance of, or perhaps in support of, preservationist ideals. Perfect for the collector who’s looking for a way to say, “F- it, I’m done.”
My Most Vile Thoughts 2015 Diary
Like a comments section for your heart: capture and record every miserable, loathsome, uncharitable thought in the New Year, and make it last for years to come.
A Glass of Water
Of course, the best gift you can give anyone is something simple and thoughtful. Everyone needs a glass of water. This glass of “raw” water — free from impurities and contaminants and people with accents—is served in a glass tumbler that was probably blown by a guy in the Netherlands wearing a wool sweater and a full beard in a cabin while a ukulele was played and children were laughing and singing in a field somewhere and the sun was shining, and somewhere, the guy who invented water is smiling.
It costs two hundred dollars from the well-manicured people at Thoughtful Gifts. Get yours before the earth catches fire and the seas turn black.
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Evan Johnston is a written designed illustration in Twitter (@evn_johnston) and Brooklyn.