Two Things
Scarves and gift guides
Well I did threaten you with some content about scarves and I’m sorry to say it’s time for me to make good on that threat!
This all started because I saw some woman on Substack share how she wears silk scarves with her sweaters in the fall and winter, and I found it very appealing. For one thing I, like other crones my age, am starting to dislike the appearance of my neck. I accept that I must age but it is really offensive to just be confronted with it every day!
But perhaps more annoyingly, I don’t know if I just have a short neck or an oddly round head but I also have a quibble with the look of a winter scarf on myself.
This is surely the kind of thing only I am noticing and caring about, but that does not change the disappointment of wrapping myself in a cozy scarf and then looking in the mirror to see my pumpkin head staring back at me. Obviously I wear scarves anyway because they are warm, but it would be even nicer without the pumpkin head effect.
So, I see this lady and her nice neat scarf tied just so, and of course it is an Hermes scarf which I do not have and will not buy (despite the actual real tale of the woman on Reddit who found one on ThredUp – THREDUP!!!! – for $15 haunting my scarf dreams), but I used to buy a lot of scarves at thrift stores and surely, surely I have a few appropriate ones languishing around?
To my dismay, I really do not. I went on a closet expedition earlier this week and discovered that I have retained…well, probably an appropriate number of my thrifted treasures. I kept a couple of nice silk Vera scarves, a small square Givenchy that has seen better days, and a very oversized YSL that is really more of a shawl than a scarf. Also there’s a hole in it from the time I wore it as a wrap skirt to a party, I told you I used to wear a lot of knucklehead outfits once upon a time.
And then there’s this very fake Fendi I think I bought on eBay. I knew it was fake when I bought it but I never knew what the Korean lettering on the bottom corner said until I ran it through Google Translate this week, and, mystery solved!
Anyway.
I pulled out three candidates for scarf duty this late fall and winter and we shall see what happens. I hope the effect will not be too Girl with the Green Ribbon but, maybe that is preferable to Crone with the Pumpkin Head.
I see that there is a discourse on Substack and the internet writ large vis a vis gift guides, and I have to say, I cannot gin up any sort of opinion whatsoever. If you need a gift guide, read a gift guide. If you don’t, scroll on by? But I am interested in knowing if there is a gift or type of gift that you find always goes over well.
Christmas gift giving is very stressy to me because I want to be the valedictorian of it. I’ve taken to giving my family (the adults, anyway) the same thing every year, and I’ve had mixed results. King Arthur and Milk Street gift cards went over well. Cookie kits did not. Homemade Irish cream and chocolate biscuit cake were hits; bottles of wine are always well-received but feel sort of underwhelming. Last year I gave everyone those .99 giant blue IKEA bags and everyone behaved as though they’d won the lottery.
I don’t know what to do this year so I am interested in hearing what you most like giving people, or if there is a gift guide you find particularly genius, or if there was a gift you gave or received that was a dud. No judgment, I’ve given my share of them! Tell me in the comments.