Apparently I’m a hard person to buy gifts for. That’s what my art director Birnie and assistant editor Brooke said, but then for my birthday recently they gave me a pair of gorgeous ballet flats to keep in the office so that I will leave the office at lunchtime (me in heels = desk bound) so that they won’t feel bad leaving the office at lunchtime, which was perfect, so I can’t be that hard to buy for.

Anyway, last year was my first Christmas with my boyfriend M. I’m very into Christmas. Decorations go up in October, theme planning starts on December 26 of the year before, I sing carols in the shower from… actually I do that all year round. So he was really feeling the pressure.

He kept asking and asking for hints. I didn’t really care what I got (lie, actually you know that little girl in Miracle on 34th Street who asks Santa for a dad and a brother and a house for Christmas and who by the end totally expects that she’s going to get it? That’s me ) so I would just say ‘something delightful and not at all practical’. Easy, right? And he’d nod and go ‘yep, yep, under control’.

The big day came. I gave him an Electra Amsterdam bicycle. I’m great at presents.

I feel kind of bad about this post because I don’t want to sound ungrateful even though I know I do, and truthfully I’d love him even if he got me a $1 gift voucher for the Two Dollar shop (but if you read this M, please don’t). All of the presents he gave me were awesome in their own way. And yes, he gave me multiple presents, which was really generous and seeing them all wrapped under the tree is kind of present enough. But when you take into account the hot tip I’d given him, in particular the ‘nothing practical’ bit, you can understand my… confusion.

I received:

* A pizza maker.

* A scanner.

* An underwater video camera (I already have one).

* A bluetooth kit for my car.

Anyway, the point of this exercise in spoilt brat name-and shaming is that the world has been flipped on its head because yesterday, without any hinting or even secret hoping on my behalf at all, I received - from the man whose previous idea of ‘delightfulness’ meant a tool that allowed me the ability to talk to my mother in the car without risk of breaking the law - the best belated birthday present a girl could hope for…

(And I think he now understands the meaning of the word ‘delightful’ because last night I slept with it clutched in my arms.)

For my next trick I’m going to teach him how to blow-dry hair.

Nanna Jewellery

I don’t know if this could be called blog-cheating given that I’ve already declared my love for these pendants in the March ed’s letter in SHOP, however, I could only fit one or two lines in there because it’s only one page and I have a lot to say, goddamit.

Anyway, these are the world’s best mum gift and would be really good to request politely as a Valentine’s Day present, if you’re into that. The pics are laser-printed on really fine gold and everyone who has seen mine has run off to order their own immediately post haste pronto. In case you’re wondering, that’s Mi on the left and Ig on the right. Iggy gets the shits every time I wear these because he’s so mad that I chose a picture of him with no shirt on.

The colours are much, much more amazing than they look in this pic. No doubt that now that I’ve plugged them in the mag, Diva will somehow make an open locket-like version that won’t be as-good-but-nearly, and they’ll sell it for $7.95 and they’ll become as ubiquitous as those name pendants back when Sex and the City took off and so I’ll hate mine and the fact that I spent $160 each on them, but that’s all in the future. For now, love.

Plus, I put my order in on the slightly nutty and chaotic American website I found them on around 9pm on a Thursday night and got them in the post Monday morning, which is better than Net-a-Porter even. Love that even more.

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