‘Tis the season where holiday music invades your ear like a Ceti eel, heralding the annual shopping season for holiday gift-giving! While this time of year very much promotes giving for the sake of giving, we can’t overlook the fact that requesting is very much a part of it, too. For well over a hundred years, we’ve been encouraged to ask directly for the things we want, whether it’s through letters to Santa, shopping lists given to our family (do you remember the era of the Sears and JCPenney holiday catalogs?) and our favorite online stores’ “Add to Wishlist” feature.
While I can’t speak for everyone or their traditions, I think it’s a safe assumption to make that when we create our lists, there’s the understanding it’s never meant to be a true shopping list where items are checked off as purchased (although it’s a nice surprise to be given something you’d like!). It’s a list of wishes, and wishes are the stuff of imagination and speculation. Dreaming it up is the fun part! It is in this same spirit we give your our Holiday Wishlist Roundtable for this year.
Calie Voorhis: I want a rainbow unicorn adult onesie of fluffiness and warmth for the solstice, because my inner twelve-year-old self would be amazed and ridiculously happy that such a thing even exists in the universe. I feel like it would be the perfect outfit, not only for wearing while attempting to write something with a happy ending, but for my annual winter reread of The Last Unicorn, which for some reason, I always think of as a mid-winter book, one that should be celebrated with warmth, hot chocolate, and fabulosity.
Kelly McCarty: What do I want for Christmas? What do I want for Valentine’s Day? What do I want as a gift on a random Tuesday in March? The answer is always going to be books.
Armed in Her Fashion by Kate Heartfield sounds crazy in the best way. It’s 1328 and Bruges is under attack by an army of chimeras — humans combined with animals or armor — created by the Chatelaine of Hell. Margriet de Vos’ lousy husband comes back from the dead just to take some coins and disappear back into Hell. Seriously mad, Margriet takes her daughter and a transgender soldier who has his own issues with the Chatelaine on a journey into hell to get her inheritance back. The book, which recently won the Prix Aurora Award for Best Novel, has been described as a combination of horror, fantasy, and historical fiction.
I’m not a big reader of young adult fiction, but The Deathless Girls by Kiran Millwood Hargrave, a feminist retelling of the story of the brides of Dracula, made my wish list. It’s been described as dark, gothic, provoking, and romantic.
Reading is my first love and my number-one hobby, but I am also a decent amateur baker. It’s entirely possible that I am addicted to cookbooks. I adore a good themed cookbook and I would like to own Supernatural: The Official Cookbook: Burgers, Pies, and Other Bites from the Road by Julie Tremaine. I don’t even watch the show on a regular basis, but I am a huge fan of diner-style food. With recipes for meatloaf, cherry pie, coconut cream pie, and something called the Elvis Burger, I’m pretty sure I would convince someone to buy it for me even if it wasn’t the holiday season.
Kristina Elyse Butke: For this year’s wishlist, I opted to choose really pretty things that I definitely can’t afford. 😂 The big issue is that they are all part of collections, which means many pieces and much $$$$. But when it comes to making wishes, go big or go home, right?
I only recently started getting into enamel pins (and collecting merch in general; probably because of where I live), and I am IN LOVE with Literary Emporium’s different collections, which you can find in their Etsy store or their direct shop. My three favorites are the Women Poets Enamel Pin Collection, the Shakespeare’s Heroines Collection Enamel Pin Set, and the Gothic Literature Enamel Pin Set. They all have a gorgeous retro design that play with silhouettes and old fonts, and they all contain quotes directly from authors or their published works, many of which are inspirational and self-affirming. I want them all!
I am also a sucker for themed makeup collections! I love the creativity that goes into everything, from the packaging to the color selection and the titling of the individual cosmetics to tie the theme together. Of course, I find most makeup completely unaffordable (drug store cheapos for me!) but I can’t help but appreciate major collection releases, like Besame Cosmetics’ Sleeping Beauty 1959 collection. As a ballerina growing up I loved Disney’s 1959 Sleeping Beauty for its creative use of Tchaikovsky’s score, but also the beautiful animation (a stylistic homage to medieval Books of Hours), brilliant color, and top-notch acting. This collection pulls its shades from the animation’s palette, but I am absolutely drooling over the replica of the Sleeping Beauty book from the film (which contains eyeshadows and how-tos for the character looks). It even has a lipstick that changes from blue to pink (like Aurora’s famous dress) when you put it on! How fun is that?
Michelle R. Lane: This year I’ve decided to scale back the holidays a bit. I’m going to spend less money and cut back on some of the socializing I normally do in order to rest and reflect on 2019 while I prepare for 2020. But, that doesn’t mean I’m not interested in gifts. Here are a few of the things on my holiday wish list.
House of Intuition Magic Intention Candles. House of Intuition is an online and brick and mortar magic store based in Los Angeles, CA. They have an amazing line of candles for your altar or for simply doing a little spellwork to help you achieve your goals. Each of their beautiful hand-poured intention candles are made from palm wax, blessed, dressed with magical oils, and each candle contains a crystal to match the energy of your intention. I’m especially interested in the Money Magic, Abundance Magic, and Success Magic candles. Each candle is $18.00.
Jamie Oliver’s new cookbook, Veg: Easy & Delicious Meals for Everyone (hardcover $27.25 on Amazon). I have been a fan of Jamie Oliver since his first cooking show, “The Naked Chef.” He made food seem more interesting by showing his audience how to use fresh ingredients, particularly vegetables and herbs, and he was at the forefront of the farm to table movement. He introduced his audience to traditional Italian cuisine, and later made upscale versions of traditional English cuisine and all of it looked delicious. His new cookbook features vegetable recipes that inspire you to eat healthier while eating food that tastes good. If you follow him on Instagram, you can catch videos from his BBC TV show and other videos in promotion of this new book.
A vintage leopard print coat. Back in the day, I used to collect leopard print coats, handbags, hats, etc. Aside from all the black clothing and vintage cocktail dresses from the ’50s and ’60s, leopard print was one of my signature looks in high school. I still have a few pieces floating around in my closet, but I haven’t had a leopard print coat in a very long time. Apparently, leopard print is back in style. In my opinion, it never goes out of style. A warm, mint-condition vintage leopard print coat in my size would make me one happy woman on Christmas morning.
Nicole Taft: This took me a hot minute because after my birthday hit and I bought half a dozen books and movies, I’ve basically flatlined when it comes to speculative Christmas gifts. The things on my list now are basic and practical. Bedsheets. A reusable straw that will fit in my purse. Until I started watching someone play the new Hideo Kojima game, Death Stranding.
I want to play this game.
Really, really bad.
Which is kind of absurd on a few levels; first and foremost is that my 2019 Resolution Project was to play at least 3 video games I already owned, a feat I failed at spectacularly. I also don’t even own a Playstation 4, which is currently the only way this game is available (PC release is slated for early summer 2020). There’s no way anyone is going to buy me a $300 game system (nor would I ask them to) plus an additional $60 game.
But I reeeaaallly want to play it.
Most of my desire stems from my fascination with post-apocalyptic scenarios in which the world, for all intents and purposes, is essentially over. Humans are few and far between, and the landscape has changed drastically. In this case, the living and dead have gotten scrambled in an awful and confusing way. I don’t know the full story, but I’m really intrigued. The other half of my desire to play is because it’s such a Nicole-esque game. I’ve never been big on first person shooters. I like side scrollers (grew up on them) and things that involve quests and I will 100% take some sword fighting. I like screwing around in the world I’m in. Exploring. Being able to keep screwing around after the main story is over. In Death Stranding you play as Sam, who is basically a delivery guy. There’s a lot of walking. A lot of travel over unique terrain. Porting packages from place to place. Occasionally ducking away from “timefall” — rain that fast-forwards anything it touches — and trying not to get attacked by either other humans or ghost-like creatures called BTs.
I want to be Sam (who is played by Norman Reedus, by the way). I want to cart packages from one location to another. I want to traverse mountains and dodge freaky ghost-creatures, and make my way from one side of the once-United State of America to the other. And I want to know what the hell happened to this world he’s in.
But since I know that’s a bit of a pipe dream, I’ll settle for something much more easily obtained and ask for the soundtrack instead. It’s dark and synthy and features moments of utter beauty. Go listen to BB’s Theme (the song from the launch trailer) and tell me that piece alone isn’t stunning.
Shara White: It’s a funny thing, how our holiday wish lists can vary over time. The past year or so hasn’t given me a whole lot of time to indulge in geek culture, so short of a book here and there, I’m not exactly chomping at the bit for the latest and greatest in geek, mostly because I simply don’t know what’s out there right now.
But if time and money were not an issue, then I would absolutely love a pass to Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. It’s an ultimate experience: to actually BE inside the Millennium Falcon! To craft my own lightsaber! To eat and drink questionable-looking but delicious things! I cannot even begin to describe how utterly happy such a trip would make me, especially since, despite the fact I’ll be leveling up to age 40 next year, I’ve never set foot in a Disney theme park in my life.
Millennium Falcon: Smugglers Run (Joshua Sudock/Disney Parks)
But if wishes were fishes, I’d add to that: Give me Disney, give me Star Wars, and can I also pretty-please visit the Wizarding World of Harry Potter while I’m at it? Butterbeer, my own wand…. y’all, I’m just a kid at heart who really wants to lose herself in fandom and fantasy, and experience a few joys that not only weren’t around when I was a kid, but even if they were, I would’ve gotten to experience them anyway.
If I had to pick, however, Galaxy’s Edge is at the top of the list.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our sampling of goodies we’d like this season. As with any Roundtable, the fun’s only just begun — continue the holiday (shopping) spirit by adding your wishlist items in the comments below. From the practical to the impossible, we want to hear about it! And we’ll see you soon for more holiday-themed Roundtables coming your way!
So I’m not a gamer, but I want my husband to play Death Stranding so, so badly. It features Mads Mikkelsen of Hannibal fame!
It does indeed! And if you want a good, handmade wood wand, Gipson Wands is the way to go! (Unless, of course, you want the wand that does magic inside the place…)
I remember you talking about them once upon a time ago! Glad to hear they’re still around!