Not a Gift Guide, a TREAT Guide

Simple lifters for you hardworking elves.

Dec 08, 2024

I hope this email finds you snuggled up in a cozy sitch, cupping something warm, or hunkered down in a pile of fleece (wearable or wrappable) scrolling for joy. After the avalanche of gift guides from the past week, I truly hope you feel like you’ve got a solid sasquatchian grip on your gift giving this year. Or, if you’re like me, and you thrill in procrastination and the subsequent hunt of final day sales: Giddyup.

Either way, if you are the gift giver, I hope you pay yourself for your emotional labour. You deserve a tip.

We do not wait, Picklers, for others to recognize our sparkly intentions. We appreciate our own glow, and love ourselves up in a manner befitting our status as ass kickers. You are the boss of you.

So here are some things that I feel would maybe feed the soul of such humans. I wish I could slip them under your door well before the big holiday so that you might steal another quiet moment for yourself. You deserve that (and more, tbh.)

BONUS: Scroll down the to bottom for a little history of the pickle ornament and a chance to win one for your own tree!

// Goes without saying that I love paper, and using a paper planner to write things into is a habit I don’t think I’ll ever give up. But holy cats have I wasted hundreds of dollars on planners I THINK will work, but never seem to fit my specific crazy categorical planning needs. Until Golden Coil. You can make whatever kind of insane plans you need to by picking your pages, format, cadence, and style. And I have a hard rule that it has to be able to lay open flat, and it does. A bit spendy, but totally worth it.

// Haven’t you always thought “I could totally weave the coolest basket if I just knew how.” You can know how, for under $20. And then you add basket weaver to your dating profile and it’s like: wait, what?

// You didn’t know this, but the only thing stopping you from making yogurt at home is the lack of a wool blanket yogurt kit. And now you have one.

// I absolutely plan to have my own face engraved on a set of wooden spoons and then I will surreptitiously plant one in each of my kids’ kitchens. You understand this is a gift for me, yes?

// If you are the pulled pork queen, or strive to be with this killer recipe tech, you need a pair of claws. It has changed my pulled pork game remarkably, and I think I need these personalized meat claws that will say COME AT ME and BRO.

// Please understand that you do NOT need those idiotic bunny ear wine openers, you do not need something with a hydraulic pump to open your wine. You do not need to pay $30 for a Le Creuset wine opener that Sauvy B soaked Aunt Judy will just throw away with the cork after her third bottle. You need a server’s wine key in your drawer, hell buy 2, they are $2.29 each. You just need a crank with a hinge and a little knife to cut the foil, be professional. Get a green one so you can find it in your junk drawer. I’m slipping one of these into the kitchens of my pals with bunny openers, I’m looking at you Ali.

// You know what hugs you back and keeps your tootsies warm even though you like to sleep cold? A classic red rubber hot water bottle like your mom’s.

// Be unapologetic about your magazine obsession. In fact, lean in and scroll through this vintage magazine collection and order yourself a window to the past to page through as you set your vibe for 2025.

// If you choose a little glowy alarm clock, so that you don’t pick up your phone in the middle of the night to see the time (and accidentally see a message) or pick up your phone as the first official act of the day, I dunno. What would that feel like?

// Here’s a freebie babes, tell everyone else to fuck off and then go watch The Sticky.

// Friends, allow me to induct you into the #sparklepants club. Besides owning an actual gorilla suit, this is my favorite and most joy-giving piece of clothing I have. You can’t have my exact #sparklepants as they were a gift when I lip-synched an Ariana Grande jam for charity (it happened), but you can join this club with these from Macy’s, these from Old Navy, this badassery from Free People, these from Anthropologie are like junior varsity, and this glorious bitch from ASOS is maybe coming home with me.

// No one should ever wait for someone else to give them good chocolates, be resolute in your standard to gift yourself the best. I love the women running this award-winning MN chocolate shop, and their treats are unmatched in both sophistication and taste. Full. On. Magic. You can scoot this 8-piece box from St. Croix Chocolate Co. to your house and hide it wherever you want. No need to share, they can have Reese’s Christmas trees in their stockings and they’ll be right as rain.

The Christmas Pickle

Do you already have a pickle hanging in your tree? It’s weird yes? In a good way.

Maybe you don’t even know WHY you have a pickle in your tree, you’ve just always had one. I mean, if yours is a chaos tree with all manner of personal ornaments it may even make sense to have a glass pickle hanging next to your Darth Vadar santa. But I confess I love it most when I see an obviously curated bowed and baubled tree with a little gherkin glinting among the lights.

It’s the unexpected smirk we fall the hardest for.

The history is a bit unclear, some people believe it’s a tradition in honor of an American Civil War soldier who staved off starvation on Christmas Eve by eating a pickle. Others say that it began when the actual St. Nicholas saved two children who were trapped in a pickle barrel. More likely, it was a Weihnachtsgurke sales gimmick by German makers to appeal to American buyers of their glass ornaments (I have a handed down German collection of other glass food ornaments, and yes I always put the pickle by the peach because in some ways I’m like a 9 year-old boy.)

For some, the idea is to hide the pickle in the tree on Christmas Eve, so that the family member who finds it first in the morning gets an extra treat. For me, no one’s putting my pickle under a branch, she’s out there, all season.

I have three disco pickle ornaments (from above) that I will send to randomly chosen paid subscribers by next Friday as thank you for being here and supporting our Pickle project! No need to do anything, just be an active paying subscriber to win!

I also have three glittery pickle ornaments for three random NEW PAID SUBSCRIBERS, if you sign up before next Thursday! Just $5/month gets you all this juice and more!

Both packs will arrive with an ornament and some recipe cards, maybe some other jingle and jangle to boot.

- — — - — > And hey, I’m crafting a How to Host an End of Year Burn Party for all paid subs before the end of the month. So even if you only jump in for a short swim, it might be worth it!