Chimes Official Gift Guide

Well it is officially Christmas Eve which means it is probably time to start shopping for the people most important to you in your life. People like your grandmother, who has had her shopping done since August and even taken some of the clothes back and gotten updated sizes for your little cousins.

I realize that many of you have probably been waiting for the official Chimes Blog Last Minute Holiday Gift Guide. Well its finally here, better late than never, which is probably your motto as well if you’re just now getting out there.

Last minute shopping can be quite the adventure, and that’s why this particular blog is a Choose-Your-Own-Adventure style blog. Actually this could be the first CYOA blog in the history of the internet, maybe even the universe. Let’s get started.

Proceed to #1

#1

The first step in any kind of gift buying guide is to determine where to shop. And the best way to determine where to shop is. And the best way to determine that is to determine where you live. This is probably the most important step in the guide and can change everything. So…

If you live in the Midwest, Northeast, Northwest, Mountain area, Great Lakes Region, Tri-county area, or down by the river, then go to #7

If you live outside of the United States, go to #9

If you live in one or both of the two remaining states, then proceed to #5

#2

So you’re a little tight this year. Who isn’t? The recession has hit many of us, and as it turns out people want presents for Christmas EVERY year. Fortunately there are all kinds of inexpensive ideas and suggestions for those who are on a budget this year.

I personally will be giving my sister one of the gifts from Facebook. Not the ones that you pay for, but rather one from the free gift applications. Nothing says Merry Christmas like a gift that will probably be accidentally deleted with all the other application requests.

But perhaps the person that you have in mind isn’t a member of the online social network community. Clearly they are living an Amish lifestyle and would like to be gifted as such. So that’s where I take the more civic minded approach. With the recent landslide in favor of the Democrats, I couldn’t help but notice that socialist leanings are en vogue this year. Which means that the good tax payers of your state wouldn’t mind it if you went on down to a neighboring county’s public library and checked out all the books on your friends’ and family’s Christmas list, and then never went back to that county. Or if you are feeling a little guilty about that then you can do it in your own county where you pay taxes and can morally semi-justify stealing books that your tax dollars paid for.

But if morals and ethics aren’t your thing, you can always take this time while far away from the legalistic reaches of the school network and illegally download all the music and movies that you could ever want. Plus you might even get a few free Christmas viruses thrown in as a bonus. But hey, you get what you pay for, and your recipients should be thankful that they got anything at all. Next year you’ll probably be in jail anyways, so they should enjoy it now.

#3

#3

Now that you’ve managed to determine if you happen to contracted to this person under familial obligations, it’s time to ask the last and most important question in understanding the nature of your prospective Holiday victim; are they a boy or a girl.

You might think that this is too obvious to even mention, but I’m pretty sure that if you get any gifts this year that you don’t like it will be because of an infraction of one of the various forms of this rule. Whether its from giver who got you something that they wanted, or from a guy who has never been in another store that didn’t have a name ending in “Electronics” or “Sports,” or the girl who thought that knitting a reindeer gear shift cover for your truck was a “cute idea,” someone you know will fall victim to this on Christmas day.

So consult your family physician or sit patiently outside the restrooms, but do whatever you have to do to find out the correct answer. Once you do, and the screaming has died down, then we can move on…

If they didn’t wash their hands coming out of the restroom (male) go to #4

If they are completely offended at everything I just wrote and are busy saying “I am NOT like that” (female) go to #11

#4

Guys, as a general rule, are the less complicated of the species. They require more food but less care and time. But despite being far simpler in tastes they have somehow managed to remain a mystery to many shoppers of the opposite gender. So in an effort to reach women where they are in assisting them to shop for guys, I have invented a magazine style quiz in order to determine whether or not the gift you have in mind is right for your man.

1. Was the gift designed by:
a. An engineer b. An artist
2. Is the main purpose of the gift:
a. To be useful, eaten, or played with b. to be scented
3. The commercial advertising this product featured:
a. Cheerleaders on motorcycles and William Shatner b. A narrator who whispered the whole time

If you answered B to any of these, then the item in question is not for a man. However, if the answer was A then you’re in luck and you have successfully found an excellent Christmas gift. The best part is, you’re pretty much done. You don’t even have to spend time wrapping it because he could care less about the wrapping paper. It’s not that he hates it, he just doesn’t even notice it. So don’t worry that he didn’t save the good paper on any of his gifts for next year, you could hand it to him still in the bag and he’d be just as content. Merry Christmas to all.

#5

I don’t know if you have heard about this hedge fund scandal going on in the news lately, but it’s kind of a big deal. Apparently the former chairman of the NASDAQ swindled investors out of $50 Billion (with a capitol B) in what basically amounts to a pyramid scheme. $50 Billion! How is it that some of the richest men in the world fell for a fraud that my email routinely filters out as spam? He wasn’t swindling little old ladies who couldn’t read the fine print, we’re talking the Bank of Spain.

But on the other hand, I can’t really say a whole lot. The bulk of my investment portfolio is still mainly baseball cards. And you do have to hand it to the guy, he swindled people out of an obscene amount of money. I can’t even say $50 Billion without giggling. It is the biggest fraud in the history of the universe. This guys is definitely getting some kind of law or legislature named after him.

All this to say that there are 3 different types of budgets out there. Guys who make incomes starting with capitol letters, the people who used to have money until they met guys whose incomes start with capitol letters, and then there are the people in the middle. And by the middle I mean a lot closer to the latter rather than the former. You must decide how much purchasing power (measured in units of how many Nintendo Wiis you can put under the tree).

If you are probably going to buy your little brother a used game this year, go to #10

If you are Nintendo, go to #6 for the ultimate gift

If you can’t even afford to wrap somebody else’s Wii, go to #2

#7

The founding fathers, who had to walk to school uphill both ways through 6’ of snow during the winters, did not believe that any sane person would actually want to go shopping during December. It is for that reason when George Washington and his son George Washington Carver invented the mall parking lot, they only designed it with approximately 27 spaces in them just wide enough to park your horse in.

In addition to the lack of parking, the weather is kind of ridiculous. Odds are, you are dealing with cold wet snowy rainy blizzardy cloudy weather unless you are currently reading this from Brazil. I highly recommend as your Official Chimes Gift Guide person that you just go back to bed. Its just too cold, wait till June.

No Christmas for you this year.