If you’re like me, you’re terrified by the calendar. Aware that we are already deep into December, but have few, if any, holiday gifts for people under the tree. Forget the tree! You don’t even have IDEAS, and time is running short. Worse still, all the Christmas gift-giving lists you read have nothing but practical, realistic and affordable gifts that lack the wow factor that you’re really gunning for. I hear you.
Christmas should be about what’s most important: Impressing family and friends with trendy presents that scream, “I’m hip and you’re not!” You know, the Christmas spirit. So, I’m here to offer you my 2019 “I’m-Hipper-Than-You” Christmas Gift Guide with the best things to buy:
• Anything with the word “Smart” in front of it. You can’t go wrong here. Just get on Amazon, type it in the search window and buy everything that comes up. Smart watches. Smart home devices. Smart fitness gear. Smart kitchen gadgets. The “smart” refers to tech devices connected to a computer or phone by WIFI and so incredibly necessary that you’re not sure how civilization survived thousands of years without it. Thanks to newer, more revolutionary and incredibly expensive technology, this year we have seriously smart stuff, like Smart Toasters (which can text your iWatch when your toast burns,) Smart Cameras (which can film your kitchen when your Smart Toaster catches on fire) and Smart Blood Pressure Monitors (which can monitor your blood pressure after your house burns down.)
• Self-rolling yoga mats. These have been on the market for a little while. The only reason you don’t already have one is you never realized how much better life can be if you didn’t have to roll up your own mat. Remember what life was like before you got your first chauffeur? Or a personal assistant to cut up all your food? Or that WIFI-enabled Smart Butter Spreader, so you wouldn’t have to do all that time-consuming, grueling and nasty work on your burned Smart Toast? Only dumb people with lots of time on their hands do that! But just think, with a self-rolling yoga mat (not technically “Smart” yet, because you can’t use your phone to roll it up while you’re at work) you will have time for more important things than yoga … like sharing selfies on Instagram in front of your self-rolling mat. And isn’t that what it’s really all about?
• Cheese of the Month Club. This is a great way to get some really exotic, expensive and utterly awful cheeses shipped directly to your home. Why would you want this? The worst part of cheese is that it goes bad and you get really upset that you didn’t eat in time and have to throw it away. What a waste! But the great thing about expensive cheese is it’s usually pre-molded and tastes so horrible that you don’t know if it’s bad or just terribly expensive. Problem solved!
• A Smart Cheese Vault. Because only a heathen stores exotic cheese in no-name, un-branded, trademark-free plastic storage containers. No, today’s tech-inspired trendsetters store their spoiled milk in a WIFI-enabled, temperature-controlled, mold-inducing, camera-included vault that uploads pictures to your Instagram account every 10 minutes to remind your friends that their lives are pretty disappointing and they’re clearly not making enough money. (Note: Don’t put the Smart Cheese Vault too close to the Smart Toaster. The fire will dry your cheese out.)
• The world’s first iGrape. Haven’t heard about this one? It’s big time. It’s a revolution in food production, genetic mutation … I mean alteration, and Smart technology. The iGrape can tell you how many calories it has, whether it is at peak ripeness and when you should eat it, all through a tiny WIFI-enabled microchip in its little grape skin. The same company is planning to release iBroccoli next year, which through an iPhone app can demand your children eat it so you don’t have to.
• Anything Baby Yoda. This popular character with big eyes from the “Star Wars: The Mandalorian” won’t connect to your home WIFI or send photos. But it will warm your heart and make you feel good about the world again. And couldn’t we all use a little bit more of that?