Holiday Tips and Tricks Redux

Gather ‘round, my frazzled festive friends, for my sort-of-annual word-to-the-wise guide to not-so-useful holiday tips and tricks.

As is usual at this time of year, those pithy bits of advice are everywhere – little nuggets of knowledge-y goodness that are so generously offered up, unsolicited, to all hopeless holidayers, in the interest of making life that much simpler and more quaint amid the merry madness.

What I love most about these ideas, which are intended to take the stress out of holiday preparations, is how utterly obvious most of them are, or how utterly out of left field, or how un-simple they are in the execution.

Herewith, a few strange seasonal suggestions that have passed under my gaze in the past few weeks.

First, on the subject of celebratory carousing: “Search for great wines under $10,” is the advice. The great thing about this is the word “search.” With just a few easy hours of internet digging, reading magazines, asking friends, and then making numerous experimental purchases until you finally hit on the one that you deem “great,” you can look forward to one evening of eventually sitting back and enjoying your cheap but tasty bottle of stress-free Christmas cheer. That’s made life easier, huh?

“If you’re making a personalized holiday gift basket, remember to customize it for the person who’s receiving it rather than yourself.” Seriously, this was an actual piece of advice. “This means considering what the recipient might need in terms of lifestyle as well as their hobbies and tastes,” advises our sage advisor. Apparently someone has written a whole book on this radical new concept in gift-giving.

“When your guests walk in, have them write a holiday haiku on an index card.” Excellent idea, especially for most of my guests who will have no clue what a haiku is. Here’s mine: “Welcome to my house! Sit down and shut the heck up. Write a haiku now.” Or maybe: “Good to see you, friend. Do you know what haiku is? If not, you can leave.” Or: “Don’t take those shoes off. Unless you think you can write. Haiku, no pressure.”

“Use an old baby-change table to create a wrapping nook.” Just one word: “Ew.” I can hear my nephew now. “Uh…Auntie Ang? Something seems a little off with those chocolate macaroons you stuffed in my stocking.”

“Glaze your ham in Dr. Pepper.” This bit of epicurean advice will be especially helpful if you never want to host any of your guests for dinner again. “No, I think we’re busy that night,” will be the reply to all future dinner invitations. “But we’re having roast beef glazed with Red Bull!” you’ll insist. “Gosh, is that the doorbell? Gotta run,” your guests will reply.

And finally – and this would probably not have occurred to you without seeing it in print first: “Have a glass of wine or eggnog, but don’t overdo it.” Without these words to the wise, you would almost certainly have “overdone it.” Now you’re safe. Happy holidaying.

Lifestyle Advice for Idiots

It’s that time of year when we gather together with friends and family and hunker down in our collective warmths to share the company of those we somehow can’t manage to spend enough time with throughout the year.

It’s also the time of year when you can’t pick up a newspaper or magazine or surf the web without some “lifestyle” expert offering you the most inane, patronizing family-entertaining-slash-home decorating advice you’ve ever read.

“Hosting a Crowd at Christmas? Find Creative Solutions,” trumpets an article in the Sunday Herald. Its solution for your dining-room deficiency? Expand your tabletop by placing a big round hunk of plywood on top, then delicately disguise it with a floor-length tablecloth and a whimsical sash! Extra added bonus tip from me: Just remember to remind your guests not to lean on the edge of said “table,” unless you want Uncle Jack’s mashed potatoes in Auntie Joan’s lap. Or unless you drill some giant bore-holes through your existing table and bolt your massive plywood topper down.

That same article offers even more creative options for the inevitable shortage of seating you’ll encounter over the holidays: buy eight “inexpensive” wooden folding chairs (I went looking - only $48.98 each at foldingchairsandtables.com, or $17.50 each on eBay). Then – get this – they want you to spray-paint them, four red and four silver, for “holiday seating with flair!” Oh, you’ve got that kind of time. And this is the best part: come Thanksgiving you can simply re-paint them all amber and gold! Our creative advisors counsel: “For the cost of a few cans of paint, you can change the colour scheme throughout the year.” Of course you can! Don’t get all bogged down with, you know, paying the bills and getting the groceries and looking after the family. You’ll find the time. Go big or go home.

Then I came across another article with this little gem of advice: buy a living “balled and burlapped” Christmas tree! “Haul it home,” they said. “Decorate it, stack presents beneath it, celebrate around it and then — rather than drag it to the curb with the discarded wrapping paper — place it into a hole in the yard and enjoy it as part of the landscape for many holidays to come.”

Place it into a hole in the yard. You know, the hole that you’ll magically dig into the frozen ground under the three feet of snow in your yard in the dead of winter. That hole.

And the final bit of holiday lifestyle advice that set me off this week?

“Turn your holiday gift-wrapping into a social occasion. Collect all of your wrapping supplies this week, but then put them aside.

“A couple of days before the holiday, get together with your sister who lives out of town but who’s home for the holidays, make a couple of cups of tea, put on some music, and wrap, wrap, wrap.”

Doesn’t that sound like fun, girls? Wrap, wrap, wrap. Drink tea! Listen to music! What could be funner? Maybe we can get one of Santa’s elves to drop by.

I just can’t handle any more ill-thought advice for those of us with so little imagination that we couldn’t possibly figure what to do with ourselves over the holidays. Maybe the authors get a kick out of seeing whether anyone actually tries to take their ridiculous suggestions.

Anyway, I’m just gonna hold off a little on the chair-painting, table-topping, and tree-planting. The gifts, well, I guess they do have to be wrapped. But I have my own little holiday ritual – 3 am, in a panic, on Christmas eve. Now that’s a special occasion.