Have you noticed that Christmas is in the air? I started noticing in October, when I received my first Christmas catalog eleven days before the start of the World Series.<\/p>\n
New ones have been arriving ever since, filled with gift ideas so remarkable that I just can\u2019t keep them to myself.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0Hammacher Schlemmer<\/strong>\u00a0catalog, replete with high thread counts and decadent relaxation devices, is always on the technological cutting-edge\u2014we\u2019re living in the age of the voice-interactive coffee maker and the talking wristwatch. For the discreet creep, there are the \u201cvideo camera pen\u201d and the \u201cvideo recording sunglasses.\u201d Merry golfers will go for the \u201cdrink-dispensing golf club,\u201d which pours an ounce of booze per second from a spout in the club head. After a few pops, the \u201cgolf ball locating glasses\u201d may come in handy. These ungainly-looking goggles find that lost ball even as they identify anyone wearing them as a dork. The catalog is laden with pseudo-sophisticated phrases like \u201can ubiquitous ritual,\u201d apparently written by someone who\u2019s never said \u201cubiquitous.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0Frontgate<\/strong>\u00a0catalog got my attention with \u201c100s of best-made gifts\u201d instead of \u201chundreds\u201d and \u201c1,000s\u201d instead of \u201cthousands.\u201d That just looks silly. Otherwise, a tasteful brochure, filled with good ideas. This isn\u2019t one of them: a $500 treadmill\u2014for pets. How will I ever get Rover to use his treadmill when mine was gathering dust six weeks after I bought it?<\/p>\n Among\u00a0Gump\u2019s<\/strong>\u00a0tree ornaments is a comely reindeer wearing a chic cocktail gown. And what brightens up a Christmas tree more than an exquisite hand-blown \u2026 fried egg on toast?!?<\/p>\n Grandinroad<\/strong>\u00a0has some interesting entries in the ornament sweepstakes, including blown-glass kitties in bow ties and terriers in tutus. But this year\u2019s undisputed champion of all ornaments is Grandinroad\u2019s kissing fish. The fish has big blue eyes with coquettish long lashes, and puckering, collagen-pillow lips ablaze with a garish smear of scarlet lipstick. A tank of famished piranhas might not be as festive but would certainly be less disturbing.<\/p>\n The catalog of the\u00a0Smithsonian Institution<\/strong>\u00a0devotes two pages to its Jacqueline Kennedy Collection, including the \u201cJackie Kennedy Sunglasses\u201d and the \u201cDual Faux Pearl Floral Leaf Pierced Earrings.\u201d Do we even want to know who out there still sports the Jackie look?<\/p>\n Finally, a holiday quiz. What do these words culled from Christmas catalogs refer to: carbide, cinder, daybreak, eclipse, fig, flag, fog, fossil, gargoyle, lava, lichen, lily pond, mallard, moonlight, muleskinner, Nero, oasis, picante, saddle, sprig, thunder, tobacco. Hint: they\u2019re not rejected first names for Sarah Palin\u2019s kids. They\u2019re\u00a0colors<\/em>!?! \u2026 \u201cRemember our first Christmas, darling? You were standing in my muleskinner foyer, your mallard hair perfectly matching your gargoyle dress. I wore tobacco slacks and a Nero tie with fossil stripes to complement the warm earth tones of my carbide cape.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2014Tom Stern<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Have you noticed that Christmas is in the air? I started noticing in October, when I received my first Christmas catalog eleven days before the start of the World Series. New ones have been arriving ever since, filled with gift ideas so remarkable that I just can\u2019t keep them to myself. The\u00a0Hammacher Schlemmer\u00a0catalog, replete with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-humor"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1717\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.grammarbook.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}