MISCmedia for 12/15/99
Christmas Presence

LISTEN UP: Your fave online columnist might be appearing on a local talk-radio outlet soon. Maybe even this Friday. Further details forthcoming.

ONCE AGAIN, something I originally did for Everything Holidays. This time, the topic's infamous Xmas gifts.

It's said, "It's not the gift but the thought that counts." If so, some of these gifts represent less than the highest thoughts.

• Live pets for kids. Particularly if the kids are too young to know how (or have the attention span) to take proper care of the pet, or if the pet's a species or breed that doesn't play well with kids.

• Impractical "practical gifts." If you're not close to the recipient, you may be forgiven for giving film for a camera she doesn't own, or Windows software if she's a Mac user. But if her address includes an apartment number, you should at least know not to give her too many lawn ornaments.

• Gifts for the person you want your recipient to become. If your givee is already into the diet-and-exercise thing, some workout weights or a gym membership are OK. But the morning of 12/25 might not be the best time to "drop a hint" about what you think he ought to be doing.

• Gifts for the person your recipient's trying to no longer be. An elegant crystal brandy snifter might not be the best present for a new AA member. More commonly, early-adolescents (especially female ones) will often pout silently after opening what would have been perfect gifts for the kids they insist they no longer are. Ask a knowing third party whether that 12-year-old niece is really still into Barbie.

• Cheesy seasonal trinkets. Do you really want to be known as the relative who gave the talking-Christmas-tree electronic doll?

Moving from the merely ill-advised to the totally dorky, American Express last year asked people to send in real, really dumb, presents. Some of the "Most Outrageous Gift Contest" entrants included:

• A red, furry Tickle-Me-Elmo toilet seat.

• A gift certificate to an out-of-business restaurant.

• An electric nose hair clipper that doesn't work.

• A Bozo The Clown lamp.

• A one carat ring that was actually a carrot dangling on a string.

Some folks try to make up for less-than-stellar gifts by including a less-than-stellar card. Like so much of North American culture, modern Christmas cards let you buy a mass-produced item to express your individuality.

Some of the basic types:

• Ethnic. Remind your loved ones of the old country. Or, send that white-hipster college student in your family a card representing the race or nationality he wishes he belonged to.

• Identity-specific. Many of you have shopped at the last minute, only to find the only remaining cards on the shelf are addressed to Grandma, the in-laws, the next-door neighbors, the paperboy, the paperboy's dog, or just about anybody except who you need a card for.

• Cartoon. Nothing says the spirit of the season quite like Angelica from TV's Rugrats reciting all her materialistic wants for the holiday, with a wish for world peace snuck inside the flap.

• Funny (or at least trying to be). Perhaps the most common of this type is the bait-and-switch gag. The front announces a fantastic present (say, a new four-wheeler). Inside the flap, a picture of what the recipient will really get (say, a kid's little red wagon).

• Erotic (or at least trying to be) "Risque" jokes about what Santa's really looking at when determining who's naughty or nice. Bosomy, bare women standing dangerously close to Christmas-tree needles. Hunky men sporting G-strings of gift-wrap ribbons. I suppose they could be thought of as ways to celebrate our ability to enjoy the parts of the life-giving process Mary didn't get to enjoy.

• Photo. For at least one minute a year, the family's shown all together with everybody well-groomed and nobody yelling.

• Laser-printer personalized. Besides serving as props for David Letterman skits ("Merry Christmas to My Chat-Room Lover"), they allow you to mix-and-match the verbal and visual messages. A drawing of a happy family at a Christmas dinner could, if you're really cruel, accompany a written message to your adult daughter asking why she hasn't given you any grandkids yet.

(Suggest your own bad gifts, received or given, at our gregarious MISCtalk discussion boards.)

TOMORROW: Why digital cable TV ought to have more than just movies.

IN OTHER NEWS: 60 Minutes II last night juxtaposed the Eugene anarchists with the Khmer Rouge of Cambodia--who could be interpreted as having also dreamed of destroying industrial society and imposing a neo-agrarian regime upon a less-than-willing populace. If I were a conspiracy theorist, which I'm not, I'd imagine an "objective" attempt to discredit the WTO window-breakers' cause.

IN STILL OTHER NEWS: It's a sad day for Great Pumpkin worshippers everywhere.

ELSEWHERE:

• One more reason Canada's different: There, the current save-our-sports scheme involves transferring revenues from small-market teams to big-market teams!...
• It had been the only big team sport females didn't play, not even in school. But no more....

RECENT HIGHLIGHTS:

• The relics of bank merger-mania.
• Some bad beers I have known.
• In the Brave New Seattle, every new building must be monumental, "world class," and tastefully outlandish.
• Imagining life after Microsoft, and exploring the roots of the Gates personality cult.
• The first and second parts of our visit to an imagined Northwest theme park.
• Parts one, two, three, and four of our WTO protest post-mortem; a list of WTO-protest links; and the earlier preview piece.
• The "new secessionists" somehow think business still has too little power vs. government.
• The new Coldwater Creek store sells the fantasy of living on the land but not off it; while the new Ballard Fred Meyer hypermarket tries to look like the steel plant it replaced.
• Parts one, two, and three of a look back at Ed Bellamy's Looking Backward, which promised that by now we'd have complete socio-economic equality but not computers.
• Imagining a newspaper for the Net age.
• Some of today's more perverse, ephemeral "art forms."
• I still kvetch about arrogant San Francisco; but is Seattle now no better?
• Can you tell me how to get to Coronation Street?

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