One of the great things about blogging is having an influential group of readers and knowing marketers who realize that. Once it awhile I get to try products for free and share my opinions (and sometimes give my readers goodies)!

Of course, not all the products are gems, but you can be sure that if I’ve added them to a list of Holiday suggestions, that I’ve tried the items (sometimes for months) before I’ve decided to recommend them.

1. Lovesac – Phur Slippers

I received these a few months ago, but didn’t want to confirm my love for them until the weather turned cold. Which it did. It snowed here yesterday and then I cried. The end.

But, to help me get through what is sure to be a long winter, I have these soft, warm, delightfully padded slippers. They are made from a hypo-allergenic polyester knit and so far, they are as durable as Lovesac claimed they would be. Also, HURRY! They’re on sale!

2. Epiphanie Bags

I bought this bag over a year ago and haven’t carried anything else ever since. I may have recommended this last year, but I love it so much I’m going to do it twice.

This bag has so many great features, I don’t even know where to start. First of all, let me say that it’s technically a camera bag, but I’m not a photographer. I use it as a purse and occasionally throw my DSLR inside and I can really throw it, because the entire bag is padded. It has a back zipper that is big enough for my iPad, front zippers where I can quickly get to my phone and business cards and removable separators inside TO SEPARATE YOUR CONTENTS.

Let me tell you how genius, yet simple, this idea is. I ALWAYS know that my sunglasses are in the compartment on the left, that my gum is on the right and that my wallet and tissues are in the middle, and my keys are in the back. I know where EVERYTHING is and I don’t even have to look in my bag; I can just reach inside. Do you realize how many hours of time this has saved me?

It’s light enough to carry every day and big enough (and protective enough) to use when traveling. Hands down, it’s the best bag I’ve ever owned and no one is paying me to say so. So there.

Stay tuned for more gift ideas and happy shopping!

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My dad had a friend named Squirrel.

Well, he wasn’t really a friend, but rather an acquaintance from the bar my dad went to after work sometimes. Squirrel was a slurring, drunk man, though probably not as much in real life as he is in my memory. In the far reaches of my mind he is the wobbly pharmacist from It’s a Wonderful Life, stumbling and spitting his words in my grandma’s kitchen one cold Christmas Eve.

I know for a fact that he stammered, because one of my cousins compared his speech to the lyrics of the Chaka Khan song playing every hour on the pop-radio station that year. Not the part where she croons, “I feeeeel for you,” but the part where Grandmaster Melle Mel raps, “Chaka, Chaka, Chaka Khan…” Squirrel could have probably been an 80’s star if he had only had the right management.

I was a young teenager when this odd, little man stood on the white, tiled floor next to the butcher block where the Christmas ham was perched. It was the same place where my grandma spent hours rolling out dough and cutting noodles by hand. She had no dishwasher, no air conditioning and no counter space, yet she never failed to have supper on the table. I have of all of those things and still don’t always make an evening meal.

But, it was never about what she didn’t have. What she did have, and what that house held, was immeasurable kindness and love. Squirrel, weaving inside the circle that my cousins and I had created around him, was there that Christmas Eve because he likely didn’t have anywhere else to go. My dad made sure that he wouldn’t be alone. Though, at the time, I saw this drunk man as uproarious entertainment, I see him now as a symbol of everything I’m proud of.

Sure, we probably handed him egg nog and rum when he didn’t really need it, but we also gave him warmth, food, and a rapt audience for his grand tales. We gave him a room to dry his boots, a place to laugh and feel part of a family, if only for an evening.

I can’t tell you what I got for Christmas that year. I don’t remember how many presents were under the tree or if my stocking was full. What I got was a fond memory and the sense that I need to give something back. I’m not talking about money, because I don’t have a lot of that. What I really want to do with my life is give people a place to dry their figurative boots.

But, first I have to get this Chaka Khan song out of my head.

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When I was young, I attended a public school and a Catholic church. This meant that Sunday morning found me in CCD, also known as Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, and when I say “known as” I mean not at all. Now, the classes are called PSR, also known as Parish School of Religion, which is most commonly referred to as CCD.

Although I had been decorating shoe boxes with aluminum foil and doilies for years, it wasn’t until the ripe old age of eight or nine, when I colored a picture in my CCD workbook, that I learned Valentine’s Day was originally known as Saint Valentine’s Day.

In CCD class, they don’t talk a lot about how saints become saints. Speaking of beheading, burning, and torture would send young children running from the building, never to return. And we can’t afford for that to happen; we’re running out of priests, yo’.

But, I was curious. Curiosity is also why my cousin and I used to bake cakes with Tabasco in them, which explains how I know that it actually did kill the cat. I digress.

My curiosity showed me that no one knows much about how St. Valentine’s Day came about. There were three St. Valentines and, as far as I know, none of them decorated shoeboxes with aluminum foil and doilies. What I do know, is that all of them were martyred.

Thus, St. Valentine’s Day was born; because nothing says, “Be mine” like extreme suffering and death.

The feast day for St. Valentine was long-ago removed from the calendar of the Catholic church, leaving card companies and florists free to swoop in and make it less a religious holiday and more of a, “Let’s see you flex your romantic muscles or you can sleep on the couch” holiday.

So, today, when you eat from your heart-shaped box of chocolates, tip the caramel-filled square to St. Valentine. It’s really the least you can do.

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Now you all know why I lip-sync at church. Merry Christmas, everyone!

Originally performed for this concert.

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