🛍️ Overconsumption Core, and Gift Ideas for the Impossibly Cool 🎁

(What is this? An occasional newsletter that's 80% good news, 20% weird stuff, 100% interesting.)

What’s Good and New

💝💝 In North America, we’ve had a record breaking Giving Tuesday this year. $4 billion was donated to charities on Giving Tuesday, and 38.1 million people donated in the U.S. alone. That’s great news, considering we are in an epidemic of over consumption lately. I’m happy to see people are donating and not just spending ALL their money on junk they don’t need! 

✈️ Are you traveling over the holidays? Maybe if you’re lucky, you’ll run into an Emotional Support Llama at the Portland Airport. 🦙️🦙️ This is the cutest anti-anxiety remedy I have ever seen. Literally, there are llamas walking around PDX offering hugs and snuggles while you anxiously wait at your gate, suffering in silence because you’re overstimulated and ☕️ over-caffeinated. What a cute initiative. Can we bring this to the EVERY AIRPORT? Can we also have Emotional Support chinchillas, puppies, bunnies, capybaras, etc.?! 

🎁 🥰️ Did you know the act of giving (or donating) is scientifically proven to make you feel better? I’m no scientist, and I’ve been a firm believer of this theory for ages. I always feel good when I give a gift or donate, especially if the gift is a bomb-ass item that I know has that “special personal touch”. See below for IDEAS!

Holiday gifting ideas from a self proclaimed Cool Person with somewhat eclectic taste

• 💝 First and foremost: PLEASE DONATE if you can. You can even donate in someone’s name, in place of a gift. There are lots of people who need help, and that pressure to spend is super harsh during this time of year. Why not help out? You can donate to food banks, to websites like Canada Helps or to 🏥 hospitals to give a warm holiday experience to someone who’ll be spending their holidays in a drab hospital room. 

• 💃 Be a Frugal Diva and thrift some gifts! I personally love receiving gifts from vintage and thrift stores, because it’s the ultimate “I was digging through a boat load of crap and saw this thing and thought of you and I love you” kind of gift. But be sure that the recipient you have in mind is open to this because I know not everyone is cool with it. 🤷‍♀️

• 👩‍🍳🍲 Don’t give gifts, just have a potluck with friends and gather food donations. I do this with my girlfriends and their kids every year! We bring some non-perishable food items and toiletries to the party, bring some delicious home made meals, and just shoot the shit and laugh for 5 hours. It’s low pressure, it’s low key, and it’s GREAT 💗

• 💝🛒 SHOP SMALL. Support your local businesses, local artisans, and makers. There are talented makers everywhere, and they are what keeps the community going! The big box and billionaires don’t need any more money; help out a real person this year by shopping small.

• 📝 For the impossibly chic people in your life who already have everything and are hard to shop for: 

  • Take them to an art auction, just for the vibes

  • Thrift them some cool useful things like a jewelry holder or bottle holder

  • Sew a blanket out of thrifted sweaters or scarves

  • Buy them fancy candies, honeys and chocolates that they’d never buy for themselves. Bonus points if they’re from another continent

  • Get a vintage lighter engraved with their name on it

  • If they’re a foodie, gift them with a vessel made specifically for they’re fave food (like a custom ramen bowl perhaps?)

  • Bring them to an artisan cooking class

  • Plan a coffee roasting and tasting date

  • Watch an old-timey movie in a very old, very creepy theatre

  • Plan a date to an antique book store if they like reading

  • Buy them a year-long membership to their local art gallery or museum

  • Take a pottery class together

  • Take a candle making class together

  • Take a book-binding class together (would be cool to bring a vintage book to repair!)

  • Take them snow shoeing somewhere picturesque

  • Plan a relaxing, device-free weekend stay in a yurt

  • Take them to a llama or alpaca farm

  • Gift them a vintage designer brooch, watch, bracelet, belt

  • If they smoke, have custom matchbooks made with their name or initials on them

  • Sign them up for a niche magazine subscription

  • Take a calligraphy class together

  • Go to one of those perfumeries where you can concoct your own custom fragrances together

Meme of the Week

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