Last Minute Gift Ideas?

1) Scratch-offs and booze speak to the heart of what we all want at all times: effortless money and a slight buzz.

2) Grab a shitty chochke that someone has given you and dab it with a paint or stain and then wrap it delicately up with a nice note about how you made it in a pottery/wood-working/glass-blowing/candle-making/book-binding class just for the recipient.

3) A George Foreman Grill from CVS. That place just has so much.

4) Break out the crayons and pens you stole from the office and decorate a nice "coupon" for dinner and a bottle of wine at your house in the new year because what you really want is to spend more time with the recipient. You'll only have a week or so before you have to either move or fake your own death to get out of it, so this is a last resort.

To avoid giving gifts, here's my go-to excuse list:

1) The season inspired me to become a Jehovahs Witness and we don't give or receive gifts, please keep whatever you got me (only use this one for people who give shitty gifts, like me)

2) Smash your car window and tell recipients that your car was broken into and all of the presents were stolen out of the back seat (If you don't have a car, punch yourself in the face and say you were mugged and the gift was in your pocket)

3) That was TODAY?

4) But my UPS delivery notification says it was left at your door yesterday. What could have happened?

The only real rule in all of this is don't go broke trying to make people love you. They still won't. Happy 8th night of Hanukkah!

Hello Holiday Muffin-Top

My birthday is in two weeks and I know what I want: everyone's leftover Halloween candy. My husband gets anxious about buying me gifts because he's worried I won't like it, but really I like everything. The problem is, I break or lose everything, so nobody should give me anything nice. Last year he gave me a beautiful necklace with my birthstone and currently, I can't find it. I haven't done a hard search yet, but I'll get to that and I'm sure it'll turn up. All of my clothes pretty much have a food or wine stain somewhere on them that won't ever come out. A really thoughtful gift for me is probably a nice rubber big-girl bib (if you already ate all your Halloween candy like a pig).

Christmas commercials started airing while I was watching my nieces and nephews prepare for trick-or-treating. So pull that Halloween witch off your door, spray paint it white and stick it on top of a tree. Also, get ready to feel like your life is totally inadequate unless someone has given you a tablet, a new car wrapped in a giant red bow or a diamond ring. Can't we just start slow with a few cranberry sauce commercials to get warmed up? We have to jump right on Santa's lap November 1st?

"My" holidays are all in a crunch this year. If you haven't heard, Hanukkah overlaps Thanksgiving to form Thanksgivukkah. Latkes and turkey at the same table? Yes, please. Also, Truffles turns 1 on November 29th. Hanukkah is probably the most festive of Jewish holidays, because most are pretty depressing and revolve around planting trees, not eating, apologizing to people or slavery - but Hanukkah is about setting fires and eating foods cooked in oil, which is a less fatty sounding way of saying "fried." Traditional Hanukkah dessert? Jelly donut. Keep your cheap Christmas tree-shaped sugar cookies, Santa, I'm all set. To prepare, today was my first day of having a workout in about a week. I missed a week because I was getting over my third cold in a month. My kidneys hurt from all of the DayQuil I've been taking and everyone is really sleepy from me keeping them up all night with my hacking cough. My grandfather on my mother's side had one leg, emphysema and asbestosis. He was confined to a wheelchair and kept a paper bag strapped to the side so he could spit into it all day long as he coughed things up. That's been me, I've been Grampa Fox for about a week, but I'm on the mend. He also liked to drink and one time my grandmother cut off his booze supply and the police caught him rolling his wheelchair up a highway ramp trying to get to the liquor store. Happy Holidays!