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Holidays 2021: gifts that matter for people who matter to us
By
Published: Nov 29, 2021
Category:
Holiday
Here we are again. Let’s start by raising a glass. We survived, we didn’t go nuts, we can still locate our hearts. And then let’s stop and use our hearts to respond to the pain and suffering we may not have to look at but is definitely there. I’ll spare you the sermon and just give you the punch line: food banks.
I created this list under a dark cloud — the pandemic keeps returning, and, worse, growing. The new variant shows a “big jump in evolution” and could limit the effectiveness of vaccines. Boosters matter. If you and your loved ones haven’t had a booster, let that be the first holiday gift.
So although there’s optimism and light-heartedness and humor in this list, it’s also serious. These are gifts that matter for people who matter to us. With that in mind, the emphasis is on small things that enrich life and inexpensive stocking stuffers, so you can widen your gift circle and — here’s the public service announcement — have more to donate to the less fortunate.
FIRST THINGS FIRST: THE MOST IMPORTANT GIFT
It’s your life. I know: it’s deja vu, all over again. Consider “Oh, no. It’s back. And at the worst possible time. I’m not planning to die this winter. These are my survival tools” as a check-list.
ESSENTIALS
My inexpensive exercise/daily uniform for the winter
Quarter-zip fleece sweatshirt, lined sweatpants, Allbirds. Now get out there!
Lypo-Spheric Vitamin C
Not cheap. Worth every penny. Proof: I don’t get colds.
Finger Pulse Oximeter
“C— is coming home from the hospital. If he hadn’t checked himself every day with the oximeter…”
Forehead Thermometer
The forehead thermometer completes your survival kit.
LEVOIT Core 300 Air Purifier
It reduces particulates by more than 97% on its high setting in 30 minutes in a 135-square-foot New York City office.
STOCKING STUFFERS
Timex Easy Reader Watch
Esquire rates the Timex #1: “It works just as well from the workday to the weekend. Not to mention the simple retro face looks cooler than some watches that cost six times as much.”
You Can Only Yell at Me for One Thing at a Time: Rules for Couples
Sample: “Do not walk ten feet in front of me unless you are checking for land mines.”
Proraso Shaving Cream
Proraso was formulated by a venerable company in Florence in 1948. The ingredients remain unchanged. All natural, of course. Friends who have tried every multi-bladed trick razor and cream in the world say this is the missing link to an even, truly close shave. And it smells great.
Palomino Blackwing pencils
Those Who Know swear by this pencil. It is, they say, “the best pencil ever made.”
Egyptian Magic
If there’s a skin problem this stuff can’t deal with, I can’t name it. Burns, scrapes, skin irritations, diaper rash, sunburns, eczema, psoriasis — it’s the go-to cream.
French Notebooks
The vintage French journal. Tina Brown: “There’s nothing like that caught-in-the-moment, onrushing immediacy of a diary.”
Mayorga 100% Organic Cubano Coffee
Good enough for espresso, more than good enough for that all-important first cup of the day,
Zojirushi Stainless Steel Mug/Thermos
Hot stays hot. Cold stays cold. For hours and hours and hours…
Lao Gan Ma Chili Crisp Sauce
Sam Sifton, in the Times: “It’s magical: a boon to noodle soups and kitchen-sink stir-fries, to eggs and cucumbers, to plain steamed fish.”
Moleskine Notebooks
A Moleskine’s leather-like cover takes more wear than you’ll ever give it. The spine is sewn, not glued, so the cover lies flat when it’s opened.
Louise Fili: Brilliantly designed Italian pencils, gift boxes, and gift cards
Fili explores a lost Italy, an Italy of the imagination. In a digital age, her work couldn’t be more analog.
Viva la Repartee: Clever Comebacks and Witty Retorts from History’s Great Wits and Wordsmiths
It sharpens the mind to read several hundred pages of great repartee — which Mark Twain defined as “something we think of twenty-four hours too late.”
Thymes Frasier Fir Candle
The smell is of “crisp Siberian Fir needles, heartening cedar wood and relaxing sandalwood.” In simple English, this candle defines fresh.
Smart Snark: Anne Taintor coffee mugs & more
Samples: “Parenting… When Messing Up Your Own Life Just Isn’t Enough” and “She Was Comforted By The Knowledge That They Were Helpless Without Her”
A Christmas Carol (yes, the one I abridged)
When Charles Dickens read “A Christmas Carol” — and he performed it 127 times — he dramatically abridged the text. So I did what Dickens did.
Manuka Honey
Honey that costs more than $30 for 17 ounces? The benefits go beyond the nutritional value of the honey –– major doses of amino acids, enzymes and B-complex vitamins, particularly thiamin (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), pantothenic acid (B5), and B6. Even better, this honey contains substances that stimulate production of cytokine, the proteins involved in strengthening the body’s immune system and helping it fight off pathogens and diseases.
HOME WORK
Laptop Stand
No more crick in the neck from looking down all day.
Cell Phone Stand
Why-didn’t-they-invent-this years-ago?
LED Desk Lamp with USB Charging Port, 5 Color Temperatures, 6 Brightness Levels, Auto-Off Timer
The footprint is small. The design is sleek. It looks chic and expensive.
LUXURIES
Milk Frother
Coffee topped with frothed milk thick as shaving cream. A luxury that quickly becomes a necessity.
Claridge’s: The Cookbook
Claridge’s opened in 1853. The snootiest hotel in London produced its first quietly gorgeous cookbook 164 years later. The long-secret recipe for chicken pot pie fills pages. The tea sandwiches — “To keep the sandwich neat and even, slice the loaf of bread into long rectangular slices, rather than vertically” — are not beyond you.
Capresso Burr Coffee Grinder
The pros use a burr grinder. It runs at a slower speed, it generates less heat, creates uniform grounds.
Diptyque candles
It takes 1300 roses to make ONE gram of pure rose oil used in a Diptyque. This candle lasts so long it’s like a bottle of Dom Perignon that keeps refilling itself while your back is turned.
SOUL MUSIC
Boubacar Traoré
Traoré’s songs blend into one another, and he sings in French, both ideal for anyone who works alone. It’s not soothing, it’s not stimulating. It just tunes you. It’s present without becoming a presence. At night, in the dark, he makes you want to stay up late.
Jennifer Berezan
One idea, 52 minutes long, not quite a loop, definitely a drone. The idea is hymnal — a chant “returning…. to the mother of us all” — with occasional solos in several languages. It is instantly mesmerizing and calming. You go somewhere. And, true to the title, you return.
Danit Treubig
When the world seems too much and you can’t think of music that might help… this helps.
Vigilate! English polyphony in dangerous times
English Renaissance church music — all voices, mostly singing in Latin, no instruments. As background music while you work, this music generates calm. At night, in the darkness, it’s transporting.
CHRISTMAS MUSIC
Christmas with the Tallis Scholars
Magnificent voices blend to sing, in harmony, praise to the Almighty.
A John Waters Christmas
Be warned. Among the songs: “Here Comes Fatty Claus,” a country ditty that begins “Here comes Fatty with a sack of shit and all them stinking reindeer.”
BEAUTY
Clarins Beauty Flash Balm
“It’s like eight hours of sleep in a tube.”
STREAMING MOVIES
“Moneyball”
You’ve seen it? I recently watched it again… from the edge of my seat. It is that good.
“The Letter”
The lawyer: “If your wife had only shot Hammond once, the whole thing would be absolutely plain sailing. Unfortunately, she fired six times.” 1940. Directed by William Wyler. From a story by Somerset Maugham.
BOOKS
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse
These 128 pages hold 100 pen-and-ink drawings that occasionally look like blotches and a text of short conversations. The book is a talisman. A reminder of who we are at our best. A message we want to pass on to our children.
Vanishing Point
The best novel I read this year, by a factor of ten.
Paul McCartney: The Lyrics: 1956 to the Present
960 pages. 8.6 pounds. A band composed largely of working-class teens grows up to make magic. Paul’s not going to write his memoirs. Consider this his first and last words. To buy the book from Amazon, click here. For the Kindle, click here.
Putting It Together: How Stephen Sondheim and I Created “Sunday in the Park with George
In 2017, James Lapine is watching a revival of “Sunday in the Park” when “a voice in my head” asks some questions: Who wrote this? How did they write it? That led to interviews and conversations with 40 people, almost everyone involved in the production. The book is chronological, which is both its strength and its drama — if you didn’t know the happy ending, you’d say this is the story of a disaster-in-the-making.
Cross Purpose
Adria de Haume was a Jewish girl in Detroit who became interested in crosses as sacred symbols. In her 30s, she made a cross of mixing sticks for a seriously ill friend, who recovered. Later, she heard a voice in the night: “Wake up and make crosses.” Did she ever! As a photographer, jewelry maker and artist, she spent the next quarter of a century preparing the work that fills this extraordinary book. Writers and philosophers weigh in, wise quotes dot the pages, but the heart of this slip-bound coffee table extravaganza are 200 color illustrations of the crosses she’s created.
CHILDREN
The Polar Express
On Christmas Eve, a father tells his son that there’s no Santa Claus. Later that night, a train packed with children stops in front of the boy’s house. He hops on and travels to the North Pole, where Santa offers him the first toy of Christmas. The boy chooses a reindeer’s bell. On the way home, he loses it. How he finds it and what that means — that’s where you reach for the Kleenex.
The Snowman
A boy in rural England builds a snowman. At midnight, as the boy looks out his window, the snowman lights up. The boy runs outside. He invites the snowman to tour his home. Then the snowman takes his hand. And off they fly, over England, over water, to the North Pole. And then.. magic.
The Book with No Pictures
A book for 5-to-8-year-old children with no pictures. The author: “They had to calm the kids down after I read the line ‘Boo Boo Butt.’”
PETS
Cat Box: 100 Postcards by 10 Artists
Cats lounging with houseplants, futuristic embroidered cats, block printed kitties, cats in dreamy colors, impossibly fluffy black cats, cats cats cats…
Dog Box: 100 Postcards by 10 Artists
Noble dog portraits, skateboarding bulldogs, snuggly corgis, dogs dogs dogs….
PERSONAL SERVICES: COULD A LIFE COACH HELP YOU?
Psychiatrists tend to want you to excavate your past. Life coaches start in the now and explore ways of making transitions. Karen’s a good one: accredited, an acute listener, with a lot of life experience. Write me at HeadButlerNYC@AOL.com, and I’ll forward your mail.
THE HOME TEAM
JFK and Mary Meyer: A Love Story
The New York Times: “a breezy, tantalizing view of the woman who, through wiles and a complete lack of scruples, briefly transcended the role of presidential mistress — and may have paid for it with her life.”
HeadButler.com: The 100 Essentials
I read through a decade of Butlers, picked the best 200, pared that list to 150, walked around the block, took a shot of bourbon for courage, and came up with 100 of my favorite pieces on books, movies and music.
BONUS
Steven Sondheim teaches a young singer to sing “Send in the Clowns.” Click here.
