Dearest America and Beyond, Lets start with what the Holiday season means to little ‘ole Emily. It involve these 5 things: 1. Playing Taboo with the siblings. 2. Dancing to Wham’ s ‘Last Christmas’ with the friends. 3. Decorating the tree whilst listening to Bing Crosby with the husband. 4. Watching Love Actually and Elf with the in-laws and probably crying out of happiness. And 5. Feeling incredibly lucky in life because many people have never experienced any of those four things. Without getting too sentimental and cliche, the holidays are an extremely special time of year that make you feel all warm and love-y (whether you are religious or not) and make you want to spend time with family and friends (or friends that feel like family) and celebrate, dance and hug. But, lets face it what comes along with all the good stuff is a long of consumption. I’m not talking about food or alcohol, although YES, that certainly happens, too. I’m talking about buying presents. Nothing is wrong with gift giving.... in theory. I love a good gift as much as the next person, but there is nothing worse than faking it or giving something just for the sake of ‘getting it done’. You know the face while opening the gift that says, ‘Oh, thanks so much for this....its....great’, when we all know what they are thinking is, “Great. One more thing I’ll never use that will go next to the rayon sweater set I never wear or will sit by the still-in-thebox-Slapchop in the cupboard that I never open...because i don’t cook, and you know it but it was probably buy two, get one free and I’m the ‘one’. Awesome.” Ahem. Without lecturing too much or sounding incredibly privileged and ungrateful, the process of gift giving can be wasteful in many ways and i hate waste. It just doesn’t make sense to be wasteful. Its a waste of money, time, facial expressions, and mostly a waste of a really good opportunity. There is nothing better than giving that perfect gift. The gift where you know you just killed it. Standing ovation. The Academy award of gifts. You know they’ll tell their friends, bosses, in-laws; they’ll tweet, facebook and link-it-in because they love it so much. Where the look on their face says ‘I think you are the most perfect human being for buying me this’. Or, perhaps a little less dramatic: a gift that they really like and they’ll actually use. So that is the attempt here. To help you (and me) find the right gift for everyone in your life. To consume without being wasteful. To celebrate without regret. To drink while, yes, being merry. But whats a good holiday magazine without some incredible decorating tips, entertaining stories, some good oldfashioned DIY and fashion spreads? All original. All for you, by me, and some incredible, quite famous, if I do say so myself, bloggers. They make me look cool. And they’ll make you look cool, too. So put down the Skymall magazine. Forget about sale flyers from the department store, and flip through this bad boy. Click on the links to purchase (or get info for purchasing). And don’t forget, look for the owl for free giveaways. Act quickly as a lot of my favorite things have limited supply or have a 2 week lead time - I scoured Etsy to find my favorite stuff, but the quantities are not huge so jump on them asap. And finally, I need to give a huge shout out (read: biggest thank you ever) to Lana Migliore (mastermind behind this thing), Lindsay Goldner (graphic designer/art director), Duane (artist responsible for all the incredible original art) and Orlando (market research, and general amazing entertainer and comic relief). And I can’t forget all the contributors (listed on the next page) If there was enough mistletoe in the world to kiss all of you properly you’d get a big one from me. Nothing inappropriate, I’m no weirdo. Unless you want to and we’ve had some eggnog, one thing leads to another....then who knows. Let’s get these holidays started, And give me some Figgy pudding,
Emily Von Henderson