The World’s Worst Advent Calendar: Day 1

Don’t get me wrong. I love the holiday season as much as the next person. However, I also love torturing my dog with Christmas costumes, making traditional plum pudding that would fail a breathalyzer and get locked up for DUI, and sending chewed-up Denny toys to my friends’ dogs.

So, these pieces of evidence of torture…er…photos of family togetherness also represent my attempt at a kind of advent calendar. We take 24 of these photos, and I put them up on Facebook for my friends and family as our “Christmas card” for everyone.

Yes, they are all that bad.

At least for Denny.

We have a great time. Not sure he does.

However, the amount of peanut butter I have to buy to bribe him to keep him from calling the ASPCA is beside the point. Basically, what I’m talking about is advent calendars.

I never had them as a kid, but that’s okay. I don’t really like chocolate anyway. WHATEVER DON’T HATE! It’s the season of good cheer and all that crap.

But this year? This year I had an AMAZING idea! I am going to do an advent blog. And while there might be Denny pictures (leave a comment if you want more holiday Denny), what I’m really going to be sharing every day is…

…the WTF of humanity’s creativity when it comes to utterly useless and sometimes horrifying gifts.

So, without further ado, I present:

ADVENT DAY 1: CANNED PARANOIA

Let’s unpack this, shall we?

First of all, Pinterest did it first with the DIY sunscreen bottle money/valuables holders for the beach. Second of all, why am I spending $12.95 for what I can basically get for $0.69 at the grocery?

Third, any can of Spaghettios or Spam would stand out like a sore thumb in my pantry. Make it a can of imported Italian tuna in olive oil or a jar of Nutella, and yeah, maybe there’s a chance a burglar would overlook it.

Fourth…has anyone check on the copyright for these products? Or anyone out there able to tell if there’s a get-out-of-copyright-jail-free deliberate discrepancy?

I’m not even going to talk about the fact that you can get 10% off for buying 2 or more. Oh, that weird Santa thing above the cans is some kind of holiday…tunic. Probably to be worn with black stretch pants. To the office party. Because that’s really the only way to let people know how you really feel about a mid-afternoon, booze-less, ‘cookies-and-coffee’ office party that breaks up at 3:30 and still expects you to go back to work for another two hours.

Oh, sorry, do I sound bitter? Pass the eggnog. It’ll go well with the brandy.

Advent-ageous

I’d love to hear from you about awesomely awful gift ideas! Please share them with me 🙂 There’s a chance they’ll make it into next year’s Advent Blog!

Stuff & Things, but Mostly Stuff

Stuff:

First, I will be teaching ONE class in December. Here’s the scoop on that.

Instructor: Cait Reynolds
Price: $55.00 USD
Where: W.A.N.A. Digital Classroom
When: Friday, December 7, 2018. 7:00-9:00 p.m. EST

Register HERE

So…how’s NaNoWriMo going for you?

The first 10k words? No problem. Another 5k? I can pants that.

Now…I’m at 18k words with 14 days left…and 0 clues about where to go from here.

Or…I finished NaNo at 52k and am STILL nowhere near the end???? WTF????

Sound familiar? This is what I call ‘The Sticky Middle,’ and it is a treacherous swamp that can swallow even the most accomplished, focused writers. It is the moment when writers are most likely to be pulled under by the forces of writer’s block, insecurity, and exhaustion.

The Sticky Middle is the root cause of 98% (I’m guessing here, but I’m pretty darn sure I’m right) of all unfinished first drafts. This class will teach you how to get out of The Sticky Middle…not just for NaNoWriMo, but for every book you write from now on!

This class will cover:

• Walking into Quicksand: Half of getting out of The Sticky Middle is knowing how we got in there in the first place…and how to avoid making these early mistakes next time;
• Maslow Stripping: Assessing where characters are when we get stuck…and what we need to take away from them in order to move forward;
• The Treasure Map: Making sure we have our eye on the prize (i.e. the ending), and how to use that to get through The Sticky Middle;
• Stop! Break it Down!: (Couldn’t help myself with that…) A blunt, practical way to tackle the amorphous goo that is The Sticky Middle and wrestle it into realistic, achievable, bite-size steps.

A recording of this class is also included with purchase.

Things (Mostly):

If you’re dying for your Cait fix or don’t know what to get the writer on your list because frankly, if you give them another notebook, they might just…use it to draft a character based on you that ends up meeting a horrible death involving duct tape, a hamster, and some string.

But, you could also just get them recordings of some of my (and Kristen Lamb’s) best classes! Click the image to find out more 🙂

(Oh, and even though these bundles are only on sale until 12/24, you’ll own the class forever and ever and ever and ever….)