There's an unfortunate sense of obligation that comes with shopping for the holidays that becomes more oppressive the closer it gets to the day of the family gathering. There's little more dispiriting than throwing items in a cart at a major chain department store, just to be able to check names off your list - unless it's buying a handful of gift cards for those same big-box stores, to be doled out among parents, siblings, nieces and nephews.
As long as we're sticking with the tradition of gift-giving (and it seems that, despite the best efforts of the buy-nothing crowd, we are), the search for the gift has to become fulfilling in itself. Like the contempo sport of geocaching, the journey itself should be the primary entertainment.
There's a short story by the fiction writer Ann Beattie from the early 1980s, in which one of the characters represents the redemption of an otherwise crappy day as the idea that "We can go to America Hurrah" - a folk-art and antique shop on the upper east side of Manhattan - "and if we see something beautiful, we can buy it."
True, the idea that consumption itself can be redemptive is as wrong-headed as the idea that gambling will make you rich, even if it can happen. But focusing on discovery is one way to make shopping less of a chore and more of an adventure.
The museum shop at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art is as spare and beautiful as the museum's new galleries. Animal-themed leather appliqué coin purses from J.P. Ourse & Cie ($20-$31.50) are almost too cute to stuff your grubby pennies into, but the strong graphic element (and the whimsy) in the representation of kitties, doggies (labs, westies, Scotties), elephants and turtles will properly stuff the stocking of the animal lover on your list. A crinkly multicolored scarf from Justine Artwear ($95) is made from silk chiffon with Lycra thread and will go with just about anything in the wardrobe of your giftee. Spunky sculptural winter scarves from BaabaaZuzu are made of recycled wool made from vintage sweaters ($78). Don't like that scratchy wool feeling up by your sweet face? Each scarf is lined with a soft velveteen. Keep your hands warm with thick, colorful matching mittens, adorned with vintage buttons ($52); each is hand-crafted in beautiful Leelanau County, Michigan's answer to Door County.
MMoCA has a selection of nifty genre-bending menorahs, including thick stained glass and more abstract glass models ($165-$178). Handmade wood menorahs with moveable arms ($102) adopt a Rubik's-style approach to the seven-armed icon.
Quite the opposite of the crisp less-is-more esthetic at MMoCA is the small-town feel of J. Kinney Florist on Monroe Street. First off, the shop even has a wooden screen door, which is a nice way of saying "come on inside" - and, for that matter, an energy-neutral way of letting "the cool evening breezes of Anytown, USA" through your space.
While J. Kinney is certainly a florist, the shop peddles more than petals and the vases to put them in. J. Kinney is the place to find Maruca Bags, made by hand from gorgeous, shimmery jacquard fabrics, in Boulder, Colo. ($56-$100). (The bags are also available at Century House, 3029 University Ave.) The handbag styles vary from the long, thin, wiener-dog purse so inexplicably popular these days, to more traditional tote bag and metro-book bag shapes. And the fabrics, lush and mysterious, seem to have sprung from paintings by James McNeill Whistler - the sumptuous teals and golds of the Peacock Room, say. These are not the bags you want to sling over your shoulder for a trip to the dog park, but they'll make the transition from the office to an evening out quite well, thanks.
If you're looking for something a little more durable - for lugging the veg home from the Farmers' Market, say, or toting the kids to story hour - look for bright oilcloth tote bags ($35) that wipe clean. Made in the USA, too. Matching tablecloths ($30-$38) will make cleanup after kid diners, or your grownup friends who have a tendency to spill while excitedly discussing the candidacy of certain dark horse politicians, a snap.
While on Monroe Street, pop into Orange Tree Imports. Your cooking-minded friends will appear capable and coordinated without looking like Betty Crocker with nifty apron/hotpad/hotmitt sets from Now Designs, with plump red cherries on sky-blue, hipster cats on chartreuse, and sprightly multicolored sushi patterns ($4-$18). These are also lined with that aluminum material that lessens the risk of burning your hand through the fabric, as can happen with a lackluster econo-mitt. Flour sack tea towels, the very best for drying dishes, come in an assortment of eye-popping colors in 100% cotton (3 for $9). More fun potholders from Sugar & Stripes manage to flaunt a ruffle and still look trendy ($5). The most eye-popping of all, 1930s and '40s-inspired motifs (fruits 'n' florals, plaids, and stripes) on large 100% cotton tea towels from Xochi (4 for $13). Almost too nice to use as dish towels; in hot reds, cottage yellows and powder blues.
Stocking stuffers abound. Look for the ultra-useful and super-portable Randwyck coffee filter holder ($3.25), which lets you make drip coffee at the office, in a dorm, while camping. A classic.
The latest in kitchen equipment is silicone, which is tested to 900 degrees. SiliconeZone flower- and fish-shaped molds ($5), in which to pour pancake batter or eggs, are probably meant to coax smiles from reluctant breakfasters who are Not Morning People, but they also lend a hand to cooks who can't make a decent circle on a griddle.
The Washington Hotel Coffee Room at 402 W. Lakeside St. also has a screen door. And while it's not really a gift shop, the Coffee Room does sell a few Washington Hotel-related items like Island Wheat Buttermilk Pancake Mix, made at the Washington Hotel on Washington Island from Washington Island Wheat ($5). Stoneground island bread mixes ($6) are also on the shelves. Reclaimed glass goblets from local and recycled materials ($16) are also available as champagne flutes ($25) and tumblers ($10). It's a beautiful spot to have a little sit-down in the midst of your shopping. If you have a knitter on your list, the adjoining Lakeside Fibers will knock you out with its colorful selection. Pick a yarn that you yourself are particularly fond of, and who knows?-with judicious hinting, you might get a vest and slippers out of it.
At Fromagination, the new artisanal cheese store at 12 S. Carroll St., cheesy gifts don't have to be cheezy. And it's a pleasure to do one's holiday shopping on the Square. Especially here, where there are free samples, helpful advice, and free samples.
I'm assuming that if you live in Wisconsin, you and your loved ones must like some kind of cheese, and if not, the store does carry olives, very very virgin olive oils, wonderful crackers, nuts and even stylish popcorn. The earthy, slate-floored storefront is packed with crisply displayed cheeses, largely from Wisconsin, but also from France, Spain, Italy, England, Australia, Ireland, Portugal and Denmark.
There's whimsy, but not too much, in San Francisco artist Rae Dunn's offbeat stoneware accessories, like a square cheese board with four knives (with handles emblazoned Oui! and Voila!, $90), cartoon-bubble shaped cheese marker spikes ($25 for six) and a chubby, cartoonish cheese dome with a rooster-spike handle ($35). On the oleaceae side, there's a touchable, hand-formed-looking olive oil cruet and bowl ($30). Nut trays feature small watercolors of different nuts ($50 for a set of three). These are mass-produced by Magenta, but if you have a jones for the works of Dunn, she sells some of her handmade ceramics via raedunn.etsy.com, at relatively modest prices.
I've been seduced by the Sundance Catalog. It's the consistency of the style - the cowboy boots, the long floral skirts, the chunky t-neck sweaters, the silver jewelry, the distressed furniture... all from the set of a nonexistent movie starring Robert Redford, and who wouldn't want to be available as an extra for that? But the strangest thing in the catalog, other than the prices, is the pseudo book club, where for about $100 the Sundance folks will send you a selection of paperback books that will go well with your new lifestyle and the season (the autumn version was dubbed the "As the sun wanes and leaves fall reading collection").
So why not do the same? Make your own book mix. Choose a handful of titles for a special someone and read or reread them together. Pick classics and new lit, and do pay attention to how the covers will look on a coffee table.
Give the whole kit a kicky name, like the "As the heating bill rises and the icicles form reading project." Starting with Ulysses will kill the whole thing off before the Martin Luther King holiday. Go quality, but go easy. The Echo Maker, by Richard Powers, is worthy of Redford buying the film rights to it. (He could play the doctor, based on the neurologist Oliver Sacks, who travels to Nebraska to consult in the mysterious case of a man who, after an automobile accident, thinks his sister is an imposter.)
The Rope Walk, by Carrie Brown, weaves the spell of a traditional childhood summer, with a mild sort of mystery and misguided good deeds, although willfully ignores the fact that post-9/11 kids invariably have access to cell phones and email. But if you shove that thought out of your mind, it's a novel with an atmosphere that will stick. The dual narratives in Lost in the Wild: Danger and Survival in the North Woods should appeal to fans of Jon Krakauer's adventure jeremiads, with the added attraction that these tales take place nearby - in the Boundary Waters and the Quietco Provincial Park - starring ordinary schmucks like you and me.
But the whole idea is that these are titles that you like, and want to share. Just make sure they look attractive in a pile together.
Despite the ubiquity of techie gifts like iPods, PlayStations, and all matter of screens both plasma and high def, the holidays manage to retain that retro, black-and-white, Frank Capra aura. Or do they? Maybe only I think they do. Maybe it's because Mrs. Gift's last tech purchase was a stripped-down Panasonic RF-P50 Pocket AM/FM Radio, an attractive and well designed model that's light enough that you can take it with you anywhere, even hiking, but robust enough to get clear reception, if you want to pick up a weather report or a Brewers game. I was also attracted to the idea of having a radio that did not need 8 C-cell batteries to power it. (This takes 2 AA batteries. $10, from www.Amazon.com)
But the worst possible holiday scenario would be for you to blindly follow my ideas. You have your own favorite stores, your own preferences, your own joie de vivre. What better time to indulge it?
