Welcome to the very first Official NSTGD HGG*! In case you run out of gift-ideas for your loved ones, may I humbly recommend the following:

the vladmaster: thank you to my dear friend miss maggie, winner of the annual Miss Maggie Pageant, for sharing her vladmaster with me.

“Vladmasters are handmade View-Master™ reels designed, photographed, and hand-assembled by Vladimir. They make use of toys, neglected household objects, and odd ephemera to tell 28-picture tales of train chases, missing steam shovels, disastrous dinner parties, and overly adventurous cockroaches”.

For under $25, you receive a viewmaster, a mini-cd soundtrack and bizarre-and-beautifully-photographed 3-d stories. I seriously can not recommend this more.

letterpress BEAR ATTACK xmas cards: because not everyone gets a real present and because everyone likes bears.

stainless steel wrenchware: it’s both practical AND practical, in ONE.

buy art!: encourage your friends to take down their college movie-posters and put up some non-vangogh art. for affordable prints by not-yet-so-famous artists/illustrators, I recommend thumbtackpress, etsy, redprairiepress, tinyshowcase, poppytalkhandmade or keepcalm. some favorites:

chris silas neal: (i have this one on my wall, I call it “oh thank heavens I remembered to wear my scarf”)

alyson fox. i love the cape so so so much:

ashley goldberg: bring on the whimsy!

rachel bone, the harbingers, or little-treeladies-talking-on-the-telephone = happiness:

DONATE SOMEWHERE RAD: I know, I know… some folks get all-sorts-of-disappointed when they get one of those “a donation was made in your name” cards instead of the 52-inch dual-core flat-screen low-fat iFrappucino-maker that they wanted… but really, if they are the sort of people who would feel that way, they didn’t deserve a present in the first place. I tend to lean towards donating to local, community-based organizations, instead of the giant-ones, and since I am on the board of a local nonprofit, I am going to pimp them out to you right here and now: the center for anti-violence education (CAE). I was on the staff for 2 years and have been on the board for over 3, and no words can adequately describe the depth of positive change this organization has instilled in the thousands of participating violence survivors, teens, and children both as individuals and as a community. even $15 means something. that’s like one takeout lunch in soho, if you tip well. anyway, donate here. < / earnesty >.

a ship in a bottle: it’s possible that only I would want this. search for them on ebay, you will not be disappointed.

MORE to come later this week….

* YCNHTMA!**

** you can never have too many acronyms.