The Letdown’s Last Minute-ish Gift Guide
I miss Black Friday and Cyber Monday every single year. Partly on purpose and partly because I don't have it together quite yet.
I just can’t. The stuff comes out after Halloween and makes me feel like Charlie Brown all season long. My mom used to start in July - stocking up like a squirrel and hoarding gifts in the dark corner of our basement off the laundry room where the HVAC lurked and we never dared to venture. She also didn’t have the ‘Zon but she is so organized she wouldn’t have needed it. The card table, wrapping paper and gift accouterments came out in her bedroom after Thanksgiving so she could wrap and swoon over Clooney on ER.
I am my mom’s daughter in many ways, this is not one of them. I am organized but it is a half-cocked, haphazard-ish organized. Case in point, some of this post has hyperlinks embedded in the text, some of them are just the actual link copied and pasted because this post started as a note on my phone.
I always miss out on Black Friday and Cyber Monday because I have a lot going on in my life. Plus, I kind of dread holiday shopping for these reasons: so much pressure, my husband gets himself whatever he wants anyway, and with three kids we already have so much stuff. So, we still have about two weeks and here is my last-minute-ish gift guide, plus some things on my list.
John’s Crazy Socks - go-to for my husband when he decided he was going to get into socks. Make great teacher and support staff gifts too. https://johnscrazysocks.com/
Grace Place Art - beautiful artwork, stationery, and now holiday wrapping paper https://www.graceplaceart.com/
21 Pineapples - another great gift idea for those people that already have everything https://21pineapples.com/
Kin Ceramics - handmade gorgeous pottery from my talented friend Dana Makstaller https://www.instagram.com/kin_ceramics
Calm the Chaos journal from the talented and thoughtful Nicola Ries Taggart https://www.nicolataggart.com/calm-the-chaos-journal
Would be remiss to not mention my own journal, a great gift for new moms https://www.emilylkendall.com/books
You can also find some artfully curated selections (plus discourse on what it means to work on purpose) in the visually stunning gift guides my friend talented
created over on her Substack: https://onpurposeproject.substack.comMy oldest needs some reading support and I found a wonderful local Cincinnati resource, Becca’s Book Box. Here is her website, link tree and her Amazon storefront. I might order all the Mrs. Peanuckle books for myself…er… the kids. Plus other ideas for fellow non-crafty moms (and by crafty I mean into crafts, not crafty as in charming, wily storybook fox or other forest creature - this type of crafty is a job requirement for motherhood, especially when you have small children).
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/beccasbookbox
Storefront: https://www.amazon.com/shop/beccasbookbox
Native Roots, another local Cincinnati company, has a magical holiday market with twinkly fairy lights, fresh hot cider, holiday greenery, lush indoor plants, ornaments and other trinkets. Bonus, fun activity with the littles.
On My List:
My husband got me a reMarkable to replace my hundreds of legal pads. I am a copious note-taker. Two weeks in and so far so good. I like how it syncs with Google Drive so I can write for The Letdown, however, it cannot convert my loopy script to text very well - guess I’ll just have to wait until AI takes over the world.
The Creative Act: A Way of Being by Rick Rubin
Uncharitable by Dan Pallotta (I heard him speak at a conference I attended and can’t wait to dive into this book)
In a Different Key: The Story of Autism by John Donavan and Caren Zucker
Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon (these types of stories fascinate me - mainly because I want to understand how people don’t see through these things. The whole time I read something like this I feel like I am watching a horror movie and shouting at the protagonist “don’t do it!)
Turmeric and Spice Tea from Chai Ho Tea (I love a good cup of tea at night and need something to replace Mother’s Milk tea now that we are fully weaned)
Dinner in One: Exceptional and Easy One-Pan Meals: A Cookbook (a shredded tofu recipe Melissa Clark talked about on her podcast is a staple in our meal rotation, so I want to give this book a shot).
Burlap and Barrel spices - getting myself a ton of new spices
Hot-cold plunge therapy session at Contrast Studio for my sister and me (did this in Seattle with my besties and it was an exhilarating experience. Plus, I love a good sweat).
Also, speaking of plunges I need to go ahead and get a paid subscription to
‘s Both Are True. I will risk laughing out loud in the bathtub at 11 PM and waking the children because it is that hilarious and at the same time, meaningful. Because both are true.Note - if you want to shop somewhere else besides Amazon for books check out bookshop.org
And there you have it. I’ll be back Thursday with another piece I didn’t get out last week because life and it needed some finishing touches. Wishing you some moments of calm and wonder these next few weeks.
Photo Cred: Home Alone Twentieth Century Fox Studios
Put that d*mn elf you scramble to move every morning to work and make them get this list to Santa…or a friend…or someone who’s not a good gift-giver but this could turn it around wink, wink.