The Healing Power of Oprah

I was languishing miserably last week - surgery-free, thanks, and I'll write more about THAT when I'm actually feeling all the way better - when suddenly a thought occurred to me from out of the blue.

THE OPRAH HOLIDAY GIFT LIST WAS COMING OUT SOON! I MUST RECOVER AT ONCE!

So, in my much-thinner (good gracious) hands, I am now holding the December issue of O Magazine and once again I am having my annual realization that Oprah and I are very, very different people. For one, I am sarcastic and unlikely to tell you how to live a life full of miraculous miracles, and for another, I am unlikely to gift you with a $350 tray with a painting of your dog on it (so very sorry). Does this mean that I think expensive dog art is therefore NEVER a suitable gift? No, the wealthy and childless dog lovers of this world are entitled to their kicks, too.

And oh, it is a childless list. There are nearly as many presents for obsessive pet lovers as there are for children, which is the sort of thing that makes me think that Oprah and I wouldn't really get along.

Off I go!

This year's list has a slightly different set-up - Oprah's stable of spin-off people all have their own lists, each with a different feel and each with a little introductory blurb about what they value in gift-giving (Suze Orman, for example, likes to give non-cluttery consumable gifts while Gayle King points out that a good gift is chosen specifically for one person only.). We begin with Oprah herself:

1) A hand-painted tray with a picture of your dog, cat or other animal on it. It's $350 and Oprah suggests I give this to "a friend" when frankly, my friends are lucky if I drop off a cheap bottle of wine at Christmas. So this is not going to happen, but it's quite pretty as an object. Do you know someone who is over-attached to their pet and do you also have vast piles of money? Then here you go, Scrooge McDuck.

2. An old-fashioned Amish popcorn pot with... a bottle of truffle oil and a jar of truffle salt. Of, of course. It's $79, but I've found the Amish popcorn makers for around $30 and it might be a nice gift for one of those earnest outdoorsy sort of families. Not mine, though. We are unearnest and make our popcorn in a cheap-o air popper and then I do not eat it because popcorn is vile.

3. The Microdelivery In-Home Vitamin C/Peptide Peel set, which costs $70. Now, this is just me here, but if someone gave me two small, very expensive bottles of face fixer, I wouldn't think "How luxurious!" but rather "I am old and haggard and desperate measures are being taken to fix my Cryptkeeper-esque face." I do think that this is the sort of thing that you should either buy for yourself or only if specifically requested as a gift.

4. A rather lovely pair of owl-print pajamas that I would totally yearn for if they were not $68 (for Oprah magazine readers and $84.95 for the rest of you), which is just more than I spend of pajamas, no matter how owly. If that strikes you as a fine price, they ARE very cute.

5. Custom-designed notepads - five of them - with your very own beloved dog drawn upon them for $298.00. Holy heck! How much do you like that freaking dog? Now, maybe you are an affluent sort of person who values high-quality objects and I'm not trying to ruin your fun. I am, however, trying to ask for money.

6. Citrusy lotion and body wash. How nice! Less nice is that they cost $85 and $75 EACH. EACH! Does my enjoyment of my lotion and body wash increase exponentially with every ten dollars I spend? I am boggled.

7. A miniature easel with a "luscious four-ply card stock" calendar. $125. There are many things in this world I do not get - hard maths, the popularity of Celine Dion - and right up there with those would be expensive paper products. I just do not understand.

8. Tubes of handmade gingersnaps, which is pretty nice. I could hector on in my annual Cookies-Are-Not-Hard-To-Make-Luxury-Objects fashion as usual, but I'm tired this year and frankly a tube of gingersnaps sounds like a sensible, lovely thing after a $125 calendar and a $85 bottle of lotion.

9. Sweet potato butter. $9. Well, sure. This is fine.

10. The LIFE documentary.$39. A family member gives us documentaries every year, which we never watch because we are a frivolous people and undeserving of such intellectual splendor. I'm betting we get this one.

11. High-gloss wooden jewelry boxes. $185. These actually look much nicer on the shop's site than they do in the magazine, which features the avocado green and orange versions. Do not give me an avocado green jewelry box.

12. The O magazine AP for one's iPad. I don't want this, either, but someplace, some childless self-actualized dog lover is just delirious with joy. Good for them, I say. And also: Don't hang out with me!

13. An iPad. $499. They cost $499? Where was I when all the money was being handed out? GEEZ. Why am I such a freaking Luddite pauper?

14. An iPad cover that looks like an antique book. If I had an iPad and $70 more, I would so want this.

Onto Dr. Oz! I was somewhat startled to see that I liked his list the best, having felt no particular kinship with him in the past. Apparently, though, he is my Oprah-land soulmate. How startling.

1. Single Origin Chocolate Bars. $7. YES. See, this is the sort of thing I might actually give to a friend for Christmas or use as a stocking stuffer for my husband. The packaging on these is beautiful.

2. Saucony ProGrid Kinvara sneakers. $90. I'm just going to give up on my mission to stop having athletic shoes be an acceptable gift. GO AHEAD. I AM TOO SICK TO CARE ANYMORE.

3. Nigella Lawson's ceramic measuring cups. $26. If you ignore Dr. Oz's suggestion that these are great for portion control - seriously, do not give people the Gift Of Portion Control for Christmas- these are a lovely, covetable object.

4. Nike Sport Band. $59. I can think of lots of hearty, athletic acquaintances of mine who would love this. Why do we hang out, hearty athletic acquaintances? What do we possibly have in common?

5. Middle Colors Ultrasonic Small Humidifier, $120. This is a fair chunk of change, but it's so appealing - like a Barbapappa! - and I keep humidifiers running all winter, so I'm going to come out and say that I like it.

6. Monogrammed Yoga Mat - $28. This is good for someone who is not me, and comes in many pretty colours.

7. Belle De Nuit Silk Sleep Mask. $30. My oldest loves those sleep masks one can buy at the tween accessory stores because she is an elegant lady. I would like this one and while I'm at it, I'd like someone to keep my loud, loud children busy on Saturday mornings.

Suze Orman time!

1. Little red Chinese money envelopes- $2 for 40. One of my aunts sends my kids money gifts in those little red envelopes and they are THRILLED.

2. Suze Orman's book "Thoughts That Can Change Your Life." Well, if I was writing a gift list and had also written a book (possible title: "Many Things Irritate Me"), I most certainly would include it. Do you know someone who reads O magazine earnestly? If so, here's a book for them.

3. Great Expectations Double Discovery Gift - $48. It's one of those nicely packaged boxes of gift foods- baklava, nuts, cheeses, smoked sausage and chocolates - and while I can't quite imagine getting one, I certainly wouldn't complain. It's the gift of SAUSAGE.

4. A set of three extra-virgin olive oils. $85. Sigh.

5. Silver Elephants note cards,12 for $75, I am not kidding. They are hand-edged-and-stamped in silver, and yet still. These would be great if you correspond with The Queen on a monthly basis.

6. Black and Decker Studio Shredder. $40. My mother-in-law has a paper shredder and faithfully shreds all mail, while we were given one and it sat in its box until we gave it away. Your call.

7. The Ultimate Bath And Shower Mini Oil Collection, which is a pricey $68 and yet I would still like. It will go nicely with my new silk eye mask/lady of leisure shtick.

Nate Berkus time.

1. The Nook book reader- $149. I guess this is the sort of thing that people who like this sort of thing will want. I would like one, thank you.

2. A purple Christmas tree ball that Nate Berkus designed and that costs $20. Profits go to a children's hospital, which makes buying a solitary $20 tree ball a lot less scalding.

3. Ray-Ban Metal Glide Aviator glasses - $140. I buy all my sunglasses at truck stops, because I just WRECK 'em. You may possibly be more careful than me. It would be hard to be less.

4. V-Neck Crewneck Cashmere Sweaters. - $145. I would like mine in orchid, but this is not going to happen, because I don't run in $145 gift sweater circles. Poor sweet cashmereless me.

5. Two decks of Tiffany playing cards - $30. These belong to a different life than mine - something affluent and suburban and American and set in 1952 and the husband and wife are playing cards in the living room with the neighours they're having affairs with. I think John Cheever wrote it.

6. Nate Berkus for HSN Ikat Bowl - $30. "Don't shy away from giving gifts for the home," writes Nate. "A decorative bowl works for everything from fruit to keys and mail." Oh yeah? We gave friends a perfectly nice decorative bowl, which decorated their laundry room bath for a while. Decorative objects are a tricky thing to give. I strongly recommend against giving decorative objects.

7. Fish-eye-lens camera $50. This is hilarious! I could easily see giving this to my husband for Christmas.

I'm not even in the homestretch yet. Good grief. Why did I ever start doing these posts? But courage, self! Onto Gayle King's list.

1. A Southern-Style Pound Cake topped with fresh flowers inside a satin hat-box. $104. As an object, it's quite lovely. Cake! Flowers! A pretty puffy satin box! I like all of these things. But $104 is a lot of clams for a cake.

2. Spring Bouquet Floral Leather Clogs - $68. I like these. I can't quite imagine giving people shoes as a gift, though - can you? Sweaters, yes but shoes just seem sort of.... weird.

3. Harlem Toile De Jouy Limited Edition Plates - 6 for $69. Oh, these are pretty.

4. Exercise videos. Jari Love's Get Extremely Ripped 1000 - $12.The Hayes Way - $12 and Turbo Jam $60 for 5 disc set. I'm getting the Get Extremely Ripped one for my grandma and the Turbo Jam set for my great-aunt who is a retired minister, because what I'd really like my Christmas gifts to them to say is "Please be buffer."

5. Renato Collezioni Women's Beauty Chronograph Watch - $319. This is, apparently, a bargain, and yet I am still unlikely to wear something on my wrist that is worth MORE THAN MY HAND.

6. Pratesi Signature 3 LinesTerry Robe - $700. Um, I got a robe for Christmas last year. It's blue and fluffy and good to wear when I'm feeling delicate/hungover/too lazy to even put on pajamas. I love my robe. It cost, I believe, $45. I understand that there are more luxurious versions of robes and so forth, but $700 for a terry robe? Really? And I'm supposed to buy TWO of them? There is no one I like enough on this planet that I would spend $700 on a ROBE for them.

7. Milk chocolate African- American Santa - $8. Hey, he's cute! Here's a nice stocking stuffer.

Dr. Phil's list, which is sort of endearingly out-of-it.

1. A collection of four French cheeses and a bottle of wine - $80. I would like this. Dr. Phil could give this to me and it would only be slightly creepy.

2. Cowshed Bath and Massage Oil - $27. Whenever someone says "massage", I say "Sensual MAY- sahggh" like Austin Powers, which proves two things: 1. I am immature and 2. I need to watch more recent movies. Do you like to give sensual may-saahghs? Here you go. I do not suggest giving it to your boss.

3. Lammes Candies Longhorns - $22. A box of candy makes a fine gift, I guess, but nut allergies being common these days, I would check first.

4. Ancestry.com Family Tree Maker - $32. I would like this, but I find that people are radically divided when it comes to family trees - half of the world seems to find it an interesting, compelling hobby while the other half finds it a grave-stirring waste of time. It's probably best to know which one your givee is before giving this.

5. MinoHD 1Hr. flip movie cameras - $180. These are nice, I guess.

6. Williams-Sonoma Cashmere Throw - $198. This is fine as an object, but I really am feeling resentful that I wasn't born into the $198 cashmere throw segment of society. All I get are Grandma-knitted afghans.

7. Pulse Seven-Inch Frame - $130 We got three of those digital photo frames for Christmas last year, all of which are still sitting in immaculate unopened condition. So your gift givee probably got one last year OR is your grandmother and will just find this confusing.

Valerie Monroe. Who is she? I do not know.

1. Maison Francis Kurkdjian Les Bulles d'Agathe - $18. PERFUME SCENTED BUBBLES! This is the sort of magical little thing that my husband - who is the best husband ever - gives me for Christmas.

2. Stainless Steel Carafe - $229. Oh, for Pete's sake. Is spending $229 on a stainless steel water pitcher really going to make you happy?

3. Faces of the World Chocolates - $12. For the chocolate jaded palate, apparently, although if I ever get jaded enough to start considering "tahini" a legitimate chocolate option, I should probably take up a challenging hobby.They're kind of spiffy looking, though.

4. E.L.F. Cosmetics 100-Piece Eyeshadow Palette - $10. I used to consider those million-shades-of-whatever sets a big ol' waste of money and then I suddenly had an 11 year old daughter who wants to experiment with eyeshadow at sleepovers and now I am like I AM GOING TO BUY HER THIS SO SHE WILL STAY OUT OF MY MAKEUP.

5. Four Expesso Cups with Silver Spoons - $140. POINTLESS EXTRAVAGANCE.

6. Clinique Click and Be Happy - $28. This, however, is fun - three mix-and-match perfume wands/lip gloss sticks - and a decent price, too.

7. Limited Edition Creme de Corps by Jeff Koons - $70. Profits go to charity. And meanwhile, you've just spent $70 on a bottle of lotion. You, my wealthy friend, are so very different than me.

Adam Glassman
1. Turkish Cotton Bath Towels - $55 each. We got some nice bath towels last year - to replace the last ones we got, which were wedding gifts 12 years ago. So I am all for nice bath towels, but if you spend $55 on them, I'm hardly going to use it to dry my family with, AM I.

2. Claude Dozorme Cutlery Steak Knives in rainbow - $160 for six. Here's science for you: if you give someone knives - and are you really going to give someone a $160 set of steak knives? - you have to give them some money with it, which they then give BACK to you, thus buying the knives in superstition land and preventing the severing of your friendship.

3. Joan Boyce for HSN ASpen Shadow Misses - $50. These are sparkly fuchsia boots. Perhaps you know someone who would like sparkly fuchsia boots.

4. Protocol Tiger Jet with Gyro- $39. HEY IT'S A PRESENT FOR A KID I FEEL KIND OF WOOZY! My kids would love one of these flying helicopters. However, my in depth knowledge of my children lets me know with utter certainty that they would spend most of their time trying to fly the helicopter right into each other's heads. I certainly hope your children are better behaved.

5. 48 bite-sized latkes - $32. Someone buy me this. I am feeling delicate and would like to eat latkes, thank you.

6. Printed tissue-weight cashmere wraps - $122. There is pointless extravagance and then there's point-ful extravagance, a rare category of magical and lovely spendy things. How I would love a tissue-weight cashmere wrap.

7. Kyle MacLachlan's red wine - $52. My dad makes wine. If you're really nice to me, I'll give you a bottle of the piquant red wine he makes from beets. It tastes amusingly of beets.

Martha Beck. I do not know who she is, but her last name is oddly familiar to me.

1. Aluminum wallet - $39. "Conspiracy theorists will love this!" writes Beck, who is not me. What I mostly want for the conspiracy theorists of my acquaintance is for them to stop bothering me with their FREAKING THEORIES. Merry Christmas to me!

2. Glass ornaments set with feathers in them - $58 - These will, Beck writes, "scatter good feng shui." Oh, certainly - but having grown up country, feathers don't remind me so much of "ethereal beauty" as "dead plucked birds hanging up in the porch." Doesn't that take all the romance out of them?

3. Personalized 80-piece youth art set - $20. Well, this is nice, especially if you know an artsy kid.

4. The Gift Of Nothing by Patrick McDonnell $14 - The characters of the Mutts comic strip star in a slim children's book. I haven't seen it, but I guess it would be fine.

5. "Adopting" an elephant. From $50. This is nice, although I tend to favour human-based charities over the animal variety. That's a personal thing, but it's worth noting that it's also one that many people share.

6. Every National Geographic since1888. $56 This strikes me as a fantastic sort of thing, and I'm actually mulling over getting it for my husband, who would likely never use it - but it has its own wild romance, doesn't it?

7. Ethical Bean Coffee - $12. Back before my husband swore off The Demon Coffee, this is the sort of thing I would put in his stocking. Now that he is free of vice, I'm not putting ANYthing in it. Serves him right.

It's not an ulcer...

It's my gallbladder and it's coming out this week. So prayers and good wishes for a safe surgery and uneventful test results, please.

Hey!

I was sick! So very very sick!
I went to the hospital! I had TESTS!
And I lost a bunch of weight. Whoa, Nelly. If you'd told me at the beginning of October that I'd be at my goal weight by the end of the month, I'd have said "That sounds unlikely". Except with swearing in it, because that's how I roll in real life. BUT I AM, thanks to it HURTING TO EAT. (this is being dealt with and I'm able to eat now, albeit only horrible, horrible foods. So that's kind of a win-lose.)

They think I have an ulcer, which I always thought happened to stressed-out business-types. Apparently, however, my life is too high stress for me and this fills me with fear, since my life is pretty low-stress. I mean, I don't WORK. All of my kids are in SCHOOL - and thank GOODNESS for that, because I spent the past three weeks pretty much totally out of commission - and so I don't know what's filling me with The Stress - is it the pressures of reading ALL OF THE INTERNET? Is it the napping?

So help me waste away my convalescence - tell me something funny/cheery/mildly amusing to help me in my malingering and help me while away the dull, couch-filled hours. xo