Stuffer Stalking

Quick, cheap–but oh-so-thoughtful–last-minute stocking stuffers

By Yosha Bourgea and David Templeton

WORK 12 long months, and what do you get? Another darned Christmas and deeper in debt. As you back the forklift through the living room, depositing another stack of gaily wrapped hibachis and Thighmasters under the towering tree, you can pause for a moment to anticipate the annual blessings of late afternoon, Dec. 25: a blizzard of torn wrapping paper and dry pine needles, an envelope from the credit card company that you’d really rather not open, and–of course–lots and lots of things.

Now where to put them all?

This year, in hopes of a less stressful holiday, maybe you’re sticking to stockings. If you’re not quite ascetic enough to do away with gifts altogether, but, faced with a tighter-than-usual budget and a house already crammed to the rafters, just keep it small and simple.

A stocking is really the best gift-giving medium anyway. For a few weeks, it hangs demurely from the mantel (freeing up floor space). On the big day, it bulges with a cornucopia of surprises, echoing the big sack that a certain Arctic philanthropist is known to carry on his sleigh.

Stocking Stuffer Themes

Environmentally conscious revelers will note that a stocking serves as reusable wrapping paper for its contents.

And a stocking is more likely to contain chocolate and less likely to contain exercise equipment. (Who wants practical gifts anyway?) Stuffers don’t come with instructions or require assembly. They don’t need to be fancy or awe-inspiring, just fun. And after all, isn’t that what the holiday season is supposed to be? As the adage has it, the best things often come in small packages.

Here are few suggestions:

Cuppa Love

IT’S SMALL. It’s cheap. It’s kinda festive looking. That little mesh tea infuser–one that looks like the planet Saturn on a chain–not only makes nifty inexpensive stocking fodder (most of them run for under two bucks, found in most kitchen supply stores or coffee-and-tea shops); with a piece of candy inside, it also makes a dandy ornament for the tree.

Twisted Xmas

SOME TWISTED individual, whom we’ve so far been unable to identify, decided that riding in a New York taxicab was an experience that deserved some kind of sweet commemoration. Thus do various quirky gift shops (and Noah’s Bagels in Petaluma) now offer New York Traffic Treats (Wildwest Products Inc.), little stocking-sized boxes of taxi-shaped cookies. Good for snacking or playtime fun. (You talkin’ to me?!)

Chocolate Alert!

McSTEVEN’S Christmas Cocoas were literally made for stocking duty. Attractively decorated, fist-sized cans contain a variety of whimsical flavored instant cocoas, from Candy Cane to Eggnog. Available at various gourmet food shops (including Petaluma Market), they cost around two bucks a can, and–if you line up all half-dozen varieties side by side–the can covers reveal a magical illustrated panorama.

Brewski

THE AVERAGE stocking stuffer runs around three bucks. The average bottle of really good microbrew beer is slightly less than that. So beer, quite obviously, is a stocking stuffer made in heaven. We suggest a spicy Christmas Brew such as the ever-popular Winterhook Ale, or the Oregon-brewed Bobby Dawzler Christmas Ale (“Perfect for fireside sipping”), or Rogue Ale’s “Santa’s Private Reserve,” with a nice picture of a beer-swiggin’ Santa right on the oversized brown bottle.

String Thing

THE COOL THING about a yo-yo is . . . well, it’s difficult to establish exactly what it is about the gravity-defying gizmo that so enthralls children–and a smattering of enlightened adults, including, but not limited to, Tommy Smothers. Stocking stuffer classics for decades, yo-yos are readily available, and Toyworks (in Santa Rosa, Healdsburg, and Sebastopol) boasts an enormous number of different yo-yos, priced from $2.95 to up in the $40 range.

Dog Days

FORGET BEANIES. Ever since it was decided they’d be worth something someday, those once adorable little critters have grown too big for their don’t-play-with-me-I’m-a-collectible britches. The hot stocking stuffer this year is Olive, the Other “Reindeer,” the canine star of the best-selling children’s book by j. otto seibold & Vivien Walsh, now brought to hand-held life in a charming toy version that runs around $7.95. Commonly available in bookstores.

Smart Idea

QUICK! Who said this? “That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.” If you said Emily Dickinson, either you’re really smart or someone’s already given you an E. Dickinson Novel-Key. Whimsical and literary, these inventive pewter key chains–perfect for stocking stuffers at $5.25 apiece–are shaped like tiny open books, inscribed on one side with the name of a famous author (Shakespeare, J.R.R. Tolkien, Rudyard Kipling, Agatha Christie, John Steinbeck, etc.), and with a quote from the author in question on the flip side, such as, “Fish and visitors smell in three days.” Now who said that? Available at Copperfield’s bookstores.

Pagan Art

FOR THOUSANDS of years, the image of the spiral has held deep spiritual significance in many pagan cultures, embodying the endless path of life and the spirit. The spiral also makes a structurally perfect paper clip. Clipiola, the clever, cool-looking spiral paper clip from Italy, is now available in round, stocking stuffer-sized metal boxes. Copperfield’s Books and Ideal Stationers sell them for $5.99. Give one to the paper-pushing pagan in your life.

Good ‘n’ Goofy

KITCHEN supplies are perfect stocking stuffers. From spatulas to whisks, to egg timers to potato peelers, the things just have a knack for looking shiny and fitting well in a stocking. For an extra touch of whimsy, try tossing in a giraffe-shaped sink brush. Available at Lechters Housewares in Santa Rosa, these remarkably goofy kitchen helpers, good for scrubbing sinks or dishes, have a bright, plastic giraffe handle and brush that rests in a nifty Savannah-like dish.

Cash Cure

ASSUMING your mantel can handle the weight, a big stocking full of silver dollars would always be appreciated. If you’d rather hand over the cash in a slightly cleverer manner, try this: Buy a little box of empty gelatin pill capsules from your neighborhood pharmacist. Get large ones. Separate the halves. Choose bills of whatever denomination you’re willing to part with, roll them up very tightly, and squeeze them into a capsule, one bill per pill, of course. A pill bottle full of “money medicine” will be a welcome–and weird–stocking stuffer.

From the December 23-29, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.

Fire & Ice

Snowball in Hell: A Christmas Story

At 11:15 on the West Coast of Heaven, just before midnight on a clear Christmas Eve, one tiny angel–with her halo in her pocket and her wings folded down–was silently sneaking from Angel Town.

Snowball (her name) was the semi-youngest but rather the sweetest of all the young angels in Angel School. She was talented too, for an angel so young. Snowball, who with only a flick of her wings, could turn rocks to rhinos, and clouds into string, was really a kind- of-a sort-of-a whiz at miracles and wonders and all that other angel biz.

But, as she’d tell you, with knowledge empirical, in Heaven, you know, everything is a miracle. Wonders are given out free twice a day, as they say. So in spite of her spit-and-polish miracle skill, Snowball’s wonders and marvels were . . . well . . . run-of-the-mill.

“Oh my” and “Oh dear,” the angel thought. “I’ve simply got to get out of here.”

With a smile, she added, “Even just for a little while,” and she sneakily snuck from her five-rung bungalow, choosing late Christmas Eve, a time of sweet celebration, for the date of her little angelic vacation.

The copper-pennied streets were empty. The old Pearly Gates stood optimistically ajar, as most of Heaven’s older host were off on holiday, visiting dusty old Earth in their annual way, with harps and hymns played in the air, and occasional miracles, here and there. For Earth was quite dingy, as everyone knows, and often needs the touch of angel toes.

So nobody noticed as Snowball fluttered right to the buttery edge of Heaven, and, with a clear swan dive that shredded the sky, she leaped, crying, “Heaven, for now, goodbye!”

Setting her course, unsteadily so, toward Earth, where she’d long longed to go, she laughed, 100 percent elated, as down through eternity Snowball skated. “I’ll be back in half a flash,” the little tumbling angel mumbled, earnestly adding, “Though Heaven’s highly rated, I really just want to be appreciated.”

Spinning and spiraling, cartwheeling and careening, through countless uncounted universes, Snowball plummeted. Rocketing past sun after sun, the little angel closed her eyes and–surprise! surprise! Tingling with mirth, Snowball–not noticing–fell right past Earth. Then, slowing, slowing, her eyes finally wide, Snowball saw–as she slowed to a glide, shaking her head–a glimmering world rising up, up ahead.

Not long after, with the grace of a gazelle, she made a perfect three-point landing in the middle of Hell.

“Ha!” Snowball shouted, skipping about. “Wow!” she sang out with an additional shout, as geysers of steam and alkali erupted dramatically, blasting the sky. She heard brass bells clanging from somewhere beneath, and the clear sound of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Frogs, in the thousands, were singing in Greek. Big gray buses zoomed by with a shriek. Overhead, flying horses–looking terribly thin–were ridden by men chasing cows out and in, as nearby a gentleman, looking quite ill, was pushing a boulder, with effort, uphill. Another fellow, not too far away–looking hungry and thirsty, in no mood to play–was perched in warm water, right up to his knees, surrounded by menacing apple trees.

Everywhere someone was sad or dejected, but Snowball stood happily, quite unaffected, sighing, “Earth needs me more than I ever expected.”

Sliding the halo from her pocket, she placed it onto her angel brow. Then, leaping up lightly from her nice landing spot, she thought, “I only wish that it weren’t so hot!”

She eyed the rock-pushing man on the hill. He shoved his stony burden almost to the top, she observed, and made a little “Yip!” as he lost his grip, and wearing a frown, watched the rock slipping back all the way down.

“Oh!” the man muttered, and “Drat!” and “Hey!” and “That must be the 50th time today.” And suddenly, there in front of his nose, an amazing miraculous vision arose. Snowball, all wrapped in a ribbon of light, smiling with a certain non-hellish delight, crying, “Ho! Happy Christmas. Good tidings I bring,” and then, and then, with a flap of her feathers, she pointed out, “Look!” for on top of the rock there had sprouted . . . one wing.

And then another.

Amazed, the man watched, thrilled and empty-handed, as the rock flew up to the top of the hill, where it landed.

“Take a break,” she suggested, quite wisely. “It’s Christmas Day, for goodness sake,” and next, the angel turned her attention to the subject of her next little intervention.

“Happy Christmas,” she sang to the man in the pool. “Is there anything I can do for you?” Baffled and blinking, the poor fellow stammered, “Well, let me think. I wouldn’t mind something to eat and drink. But every time I reach for a snack, the water dries up and the trees all jump back.”

“What a shame!” and “Oh, golly,” did Snowball remark, “that just isn’t right.”

And then, with a spark of remarkable light, Snowball snapped her little fingers. From out of thin air, shimmering with a glimmer of heavenly glint, there appeared in the angel’s hand . . . a mint.

“Open up wide,” cried the angel so young, and placed the sweet upon his tongue.

“Oh my,” the man suggested, and then, and then–as Snowball counted up to 10–as he mouthed the candy, so tiny and small, and felt it melt into nothing at all, he gave a small, “Hmmmmmm,” and then he said, “Hey!,” as all of his hunger and thirst went away. It was gone in a flash, it went out like a light; the sweet had deleted his appetite.

“Merry Christmas,” said Snowball with obvious delight.

The little angel was just warming up. Literally so. “This terrible heat has got to go,” she said. And, blinking two times, crying, “Tallyho!” she caused a heavenly breeze to blow. Then, up from the steaming soil she flew, looking for other good deeds to do, as all across the sulfurous, odoriferous landscape of Hell, the magic breeze touched the brows of all the angel’s clientele.

Now racing as fast as she could fly, she rained down miracles from the sky. A Christmas tree there, and a string of lights here. “Hey, hey!” and ‘Good cheer,” were her welcome refrains, as she flew melting every last one of Hell’s chains.

“Happy Christmas!” she hollered, then, “Yippee ki yi!” as she noticed those ghost riders up in the sky. Like a flash she flew up, and I can’t tell you how, but she helped each cowboy catch his cow.

At last, after all the deeds she could do were done, Snowball smiled. “Gee, that was fun. It’s getting late. It’s time to fly.” Then, up she sailed toward the early dawn sky, as the people of Hell blew her kisses, goodbye.

“Oh!” Snowball shouted, “Before I go, there’s one last thing.”

And it started to snow.

So she blasted to Heaven, where it was still early, and crept past the gates, still open, still pearly. Back at her five-rung bungalow, Snowball took the halo from her head, and crawled into her angel bed.

Then she smiled and sighed, and whispered, “Oh dear. I’ll just have to do that every year.”

From the December 23-29, 1999 issue of the Sonoma County Independent.

© Metro Publishing Inc.