Smitten in the Mitten,

Jordan

A: Hiya Jordan. Ain’t love grand? You’re probably so twitterpated you can’t stop staring into Mr. Wonderful’s eyes (aka: SOUL) long enough to get out to the store and buy tokens of affection. This is a good thing for two reasons: 1. You shouldn’t drive and stare at your lover at the same time, it’s dangerous. 2. Who needs storebought crappy pap like M&Ms with pictures of your face on them (creepy) and pink bubble bath (that in the words of my sister, “will make your butt itch”) when you’ve got ME to come up with swell homespun ideas for you?

So here’s some gift advice for all you lovers out there:

1.

 A cute n’easy way to say “I love you” or “I really like you” or “You’re ok” is to personalize a children’s book that is about love or Valentine’s Day– just a short little cute one that relates to you guys as a couple. Purchase it (this step is important because you’re going to vandalize it) and then write personal notes on some of the pages. I’ve done this with several boyfriends, and only most of them ended up dumping me. And almost none of them hated the gift because it revealed them to be illiterate.

2. Another take on this is to make a  Have You Seen My Heart Valentine. Take a kid’s/coloring/sticker book (preferably one that is Valentine’s themed) and “hide” heart stickers in different places on the pages: like under a table, in a tree, etc. Throughout the book, you can write “Have you seen my heart?” “Is it inside the stove?” “Is it…” and on the last page, “Oh! YOU have my heart!”  It’s cheesy, but, c’mon, it’s Valentines Day. And it’s a great way to let someone in a new relationship know you’ve fallen for them without actually working up the nerve to tell them you’ve fallen for them.

3.

What about DIY scratch-off lottery tickets? You can make them with silver paint and dish soap (I’ve never done it but I want to) and write little love notes that your lovah can scratch off. Dollar Store Crafts has a great tutorial. Make the notes he/she/he-she reveals sweet (“You’ve won 5 million KISSES Schmoopy!”) or saucy (“I’m wearing scratch off underwear too”) or political (“Stop buying lottery tickets, it’s a ploy by the government to get you to believe in false hopes, ask Kanye”).

4.

 If you want to go more on the naughty side of Valentine’s Day, you could make a Do Not Disturb doorknob sign…You could even set your house up like a hotel and make your sweetheart leave money on the dresser. Just for kicks.

5.

 Chocolates have “been done” on Valentine’s Day, but I found a post on Nifty Thrifty Things for how to make your own Baileys, which would be delicious! Find a roaring fireplace or television that’s warm from being on so long and cuddle up with your homemade brew and your sweetheart. Sounds delightful.

Well, Jordan, I wish you and yours a lovely V-day. Let me know what you end up doing, unless it’s dirty.

Here’s a video for those of you who read the title of this post and got excited about seeing the “Show Me Love” video by Robyn and just scrolled to the end. I don’t dissappoint.

Just to be clear, this post is about Valentines Day and thus, love. I’ma get gushy. You’ll find no anti-VDay, black armband, burn-all-the-relics-from-the-shrine-you-created-for-the-man-you’re-stalking suggestions here. The only thing I find more annoying then people that treat Valentines Day like a serious holiday is people that get pissy about it and spread their doom and gloom around like peanut butter on hot toast (unless you’re a teenager, then you’re excused because you have to put up with competing for how many carnations you have sent to you, an evil popularity plot, probably set into motion by that cheerleading coach from Glee).

So if it’s a pity party you’re looking for,  you’ll find more solace in the hot deli at your local grocery store. But if it’s lovey dovey-ness you crave, well you’re in the right spot! Here are some excellent Valentines Day party themes for the ol’ 14th of Feb.:

1. Past Their Prime (Time): TV Couples Costume Party

Famous movie star couples have been done so why not have shindig dedicated to the great loves of boob tube past? Have guests dress as their favorite twosomes. For example:

• Sam and Diane from Cheers (I get dibs on that if you invite me)
• Kevin and Winnie from The Wonder Years
• Sandra and Elvin from The Cosby Show
• Blanche from Golden Girls and every male senior citizen from Miami (group costume)
• Charles in Charge and the sisters because you know that’s what he was in it for
• The Nanny and Mr. Sheffield
• Burt and Ernie

I could go on all day, but everyone has a favorite so let them decide.

Invites and Decoration: If you want to get fancy and make invitations, style them after a TV Guide. You know, like 6:30-7: Live in the Kitchen with Appetizers!; 7-7:30: So You Think You Can Drink, so on. Decoration and atmosphere can be low key. Check out some classic TV theme song CDs from the library for background music and also find a recording of canned laughter and play it every time someone makes a lame joke. Create a makeshift photo area with props and a TV screen cut out from cardboard that guests can stand behind. Constantly interrupt your guests for commercial breaks. Make sure and do product placement all around your house. For example, make little cards in your bathroom that say “Your bathroom break is sponsored by Charmin Toilet Paper and a box of matches!”.

Food and Drink: Serve “Let’s go out to the kitchen” snacks on TV trays throughout the room. Choose foods that you would eat while watching the telly: popcorn, candy, whisky straight from the bottle, etc.

Extras: Make a trophy by gluing an old thrift store remote to some sort of platform and give it to best costume or do a TV trivia quiz for a grand prize.

2. Why Must I Be A Teenager in Love?: School Dance Party

Invites and Decoration: Style this party like a 1950s dance held in the high school gym. Send invitations made out of notebook paper and folded up as a note you would pass in class. Guests can check yes or no for their RSVP. Encourage people to dress up in old fashioned prom outfits: chiffon dresses, ducktails, pockmarks. Hang tissue paper streamers and a big paper heart that guests can tape their senior pictures up to for everyone to laugh at. Play doo-wop records for the dance floor and make sure there’s lots of slow dancing. Keep the lights low. Make your old friends be chaperones.

Food and Drink: Spiked punch, obviously. Other than that you can go two ways with the menu. Either serve 1950s cookbook style items: Jell-O Molds, entrees with two kinds of meat in one dish, roll #$%@ up in ham, use fancy toothpicks. OR, theme your dishes after 1950s pop songs. For example: “And They Called it Puppy Chow”, “Johnny Angel-Food Cake”, “Leader of the Pack-et Taco Seasoning”. That kind of thing.

Extras: Station someone in the bathroom to hide out and offer people cigarettes or give them swirlies. Call everyone’s parents to pick them up.

3. Love Potion #9 Party

It’s possible that your guests don’t really feel like dressing up. In which case, a Love Potion #9 party is the one for you. You can go as simple as a punch bowl with a Post-It that reads “Hey guys this is love potion”, or really get into it and throw a Mad Scientist /Gypsy blowout.

Invites and Decoration: Just call your friends and invite them. Haven’t I thought of enough ideas for you? Decorate your home like a bordello: scarves draped over stuff, lots of lamps, incense burning, and some sort of glass globe (magic ball) or tarot cards strewn about. Designate someone Madame Ruth (you know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth?) to pass out random future readings to people. Definitely designate a makeout room with trippy music playing in case your guests start “kissin’ everything in sight”.

Food and Drink: This seems to me mostly a drinking party. Mix up several different punches of all different colors (use food dye to make them really distinct). If you want to stay true to the song, mix one punch up “right here in the sink”. Place cards in front of each punch that says what type of “potion” it is: Love Potion, Unrequited Love Elixir, Stalker’s Brew, Tonic for Commitment-phobes. Include little snacks to soak up somma that potion so no one get’s pulled over by “a cop down at Thirty Fourth and Vine” on the way home.

Extras: Do NOT actually drug people.

That’s all for now! I won’t invite myself if you throw one of these, but I will hold it against you forever if you don’t let me come.

2011 New Year’s Resolutions:

• Write every day for at least an hour (2012 Me: Psssshhhh)
• Send novel manuscript out again (2012 Me: DID IT! Rejected 5 times! New Record!)
• Finish Thriftfulness book proposal (2012 Me: DID IT! Rejected twice, but once they took awhile so I’m operating under the assumption that they stole my idea and am preparing my “suing” papers)
• Make a diorama (2012 Me: You spent half the year unemployed and you didn’t make a frickin’ diorama? What were you doing???)
• Pack lunch more (2012 Me: SUCCESS! Being unemployed half the year helped)
• Spend more time outside (2012 Me: What did 2011 Me mean by “more”? Does deck drinkin’ count?)
• Continue to garden (2012 Me: ACCOMPLISHED! And I’ve got the pesto breath to prove it)
• Get good sleep (2012 Me: Did I subconsciously know I was about to get laid off?)

Coming off of that kind of success, I feel like I can do anything!!! I’m going to start 2012 off with a silent bang. It will be a bang because I’m going to get a s*&% ton of stuff done. It will be silent because, get ready, I will not be using the Internet.

One of my 2012 Resolutions, beside “wear less burnt orange”, is to go “screen free” for January. That means no Facebook, no Twitter, no TV, no smartphone (I don’t have a smartphone. I like to throw myself bones). Probably, I will become so enlightened that when you check back in with me in February, I’ll have a long grey beard and wear a muumuu with metallic threaded moons and flowers on it and I’ll have decided that something I previously found essential to life is actually useless, like shoes or tacos or Cheers reruns. I might have purchased some kind of moped to drive around on and I’ll start bringing exquisite blades of grass to people who invite me to dinner instead of bottles of wine.You’ll probably be jealous. I just want to prepare you.

So I’ll be somewhere on a park bench reading Walden to the geese all through January. If you miss me you can reflect on some of my older awesome posts and look forward to all that is to come for Thriftfulness in 2012. Liiiike:

• I’m going to make crackers.
• More party themes including a special Valentines Day Party Ideas post.
• My ass is going to Hawaii so look forward to some coconut shell crafts and mai-tai drunken tweets.
• Find out how I learned how babies were made.
• More gifts for kids!
• A Thriftfulness Etsy shop. Could it be? Yes. It could. If your coordination skills could possibly be more off than mine (not likely), than you might not be able to make the crafts I make, so you could buy them instead. If you have more money than me (likely), you could buy them just to be nice.

If you don’t like any of those things, you don’t have to be such a drag about it. Here, I will give you two whole lines  from a book that I read this year that I really liked and think about when I think about the new year because these particular quotes are about love and being a spaz and being hopeful. I made a computer picture to illustrate:

From Binnie Kirshenbaum’s An Almost Perfect Moment:There. Now I’m leaving. Enjoy the Internet SUCKAS!!!

Love,

Annie

I had an old book about moose (meese?) from a library book sale that I bought for .25. I also had some glitter, a gluestick, my trusty hot glue gun, some stamps n’crap, and leftover blank cards and envelopes from the wedding. I also had (and have!) a wicked sense of moose humor. So I made them up and sealed them up and marked them with an A. And put ‘em in the mailbox for Brooklyn Bride Card Swap (not for you). I’m sorry the pictures are a little blurry. I took them quickly because I have a lot of friends and things to do this time of year. You know the feeling, right? No?…

The outsides of the cards have different moose jokes. Like this one from Reindeer Blitzen’s resentful cousin Francie:

Moose and reindeer are cousins, right? Just go with it. I made two versions. I forgot what the inside of this one says:

I stamped one card full-up of trees:

And put a pushy moose on the front. The inside says, “Enjoy it ALL this season.”:

Here’s another one:

Check out how the strings from the hot glue, normally a pesky pest, made it look like real tinsel hanging from Aunt Moose’s antlers:

This moose isn’t all that excited about the forest holiday party after last year. Those possums can be so judgmental. Inside says, “Enjoy the festivities this year!”:

Here’s Francie again. Will she ever figure out that it’s mayonnaise, not Miracle Whip?:

And another version, the inside says “Hope you get everything you want this year!”:

There. Feel better? Less lonely? More educated about social ettiquette between meese? You’re welcome. Happy holidays.

I hope by this day you’ve got all your gifts made or bought because if you have a JoAnn’s Fabrics trip to make yet, Lord help you. You don’t want to see the coupon hoarding and dented ornament grabbing that’s going on there. JoAnn would not be be pleased.

So if you don’t have the time or the money or the sheer will to go back out and buy up wrapping paper and gift-tags, you have two options:

A) buy up those Christmas tree shaped Little Debbies that are delicious and have free gift tags printed on the back. Although after you finish all those tasty trees, you might have to go to JoAnn’s anyway to buy some more elastic for your pants. Plus people will judge you for eating lots of boxes of Little Debbies.

B) OR you can find creative gift wrapping solutions here and look below at my the gift tags I made out of the paper crap.

I suggest the latter option (and one box of Christmas tree cakes).

This year, instead of buying gifts for every person in my family, we are each buying five of our favorite things for $5 or under and then drawing names to exchange. This way, we each only spend $25 and we get to share cheap stuff that we love, which is one of our family pastimes anyway. We’re not wrapping the gifts so as not to waste paper (so savvy and modern we are! (read: cheap)) so I wanted to make cute tags to let the fam know, “Hey this high caliber $3.99 present is from Yours Truly”.

I made the tags below from the backs of some birthday or thank you cards I’d received and pictures of animals from an old children’s encyclopedia:

I made these from, uh, the same thing: old greeting cards and encyclopedia pictures. But these ones have birds!:

The little number below is one tiny square of wrapping paper that I bought and felt guilty about for spending so much on, hence the saving of tiny little squares of it:

And you may remember from the 2010 Valentines I made that I once had an address book that was pictures of phones:

Then I stamped the back with a custom-made “annie’s fave things”. I was too lazy to spell “favorite”.:

Aw, would you look at that?

Is that just sweeter than any Little Debbie you’ve ever seen? What a difference hoarding and glue can make!

Turn around, Santa.

EVERY NOW AND THEN I AM THE BEST!

Turn around, Martha.

EVERY NOW AND THEN I AM THE BEST!

Alright, we’re back with Holiday Ornaments: Part 2. I’m going to start off by letting you know that you shouldn’t be intimidated. You TOO can win at ornament-giving this holiday season, even if you lack the literally awe-some robot making skills I’ve attained. See the picture below:

The beauties above were made with store-bought ornaments that any old guy or gal can make when armed with a permanent marker and their trusty hot glue gun. The star ornament and the reindeer ornaments, I bought at a department store $1.50 or less each and then personalized with a silver Sharpie. The tow truck and the microphone I bought as wood pieces at a craft store, personalized and then hot-glued a yarn loop on the back. Bam. Ornament. So you see, even if you fail at most crafts and you are broke, you can still give a thoughtful and personal ornament as a gift this season. Feel better? Stopped crying? Ok, onto the real goods.

So I saw a catalog with a robot ornament in it, but it was like $15 or something. Whenever I see anything over $3.99, I stop and think: “Can I make this with crap I have at home?”. When it comes to lightbulbs, toiletpaper, and anything with sleeves, the answer is no. But robots? Uh, ye-eah.

First, I hastily made some cubes out of an old cereal box and duct-taped them together. Duct tape works well because it’s silver and will hide any glitter bald spots. If one is out of glitter (and again, one should probably never be out of glitter), one could simply duct tape the whole thing and be done with it.

After that, I poked some holes in my boxes and stuck some pipe cleaner in for legs and the requisite robot bolt-through-the-head, although now that I think of it, that’s Frankenstein….I hot glued around the holes afterward to secure them. On one of the robots, I put the legs in on the wrong side so they ended up one in front of the other. I just crossed them. Now it looks like he’s dancing or holding his robot pee.

Next, I painted Mod Podge all over those bad boyz (holding them by their pipe cleaner legs) and turned on the glitter fountain. I shook excess glitter off onto a paper plate and kept reusing it. For all my general untidiness and lack of follow-through, I am surprisingly adept at perfectly covering objects with the most conservative amount of glitter. I don’t waste a speck. If you know of any job openings for that, lemme know.

Finally, I hot-glued some robot-like sequins on there (I got a bag of about a million sequins for $3 and I plan on using them jeeeest about everywhere until they’re gone).

Here’s one of them on the tree (I hot-glued a pipe-cleaner loop for a hook), next to a wooden duck that my Grandpa Funke made. He was an original craftsmen. He cut the wood shapes and probably made the paint himself and dyed it with choke-cherries. My robot doesn’t come close to Grandpa’s skillz but they make a sweet looking duo anyway, I think. They’re not even aware they’re such a funny pair.

Wow, you’re probably saying. Did you finally stop making ornaments? Mister, you ain’t seen how often my siblings procreate. I had one little niece-y poo left to orna-fy and I was getting worried that my husband was going to start noticing that there was glitter stuck to everything, including Barb. So I switched to felt.

Hey lil’ bird! My niece’s name is Scarlett so I figured I would make her a scarlet bird instead of the scarlet A that I had originally planned. A for Aunt Annie, right? To make, I cut two bird-like shapes out of felt and two wing-like shapes. I sewed the wings onto each side, and embroidered some eyes and stars and what-not. Then, I stitched ‘er up and stuffed her with some stuffing I bought like 3 years ago when I decided I was going to make a lot of pillows and diiiiid not.

Dude, that bird is hung. On the tree. Lookin’ fierce.

Wull, I’d love to stay locked up pretending I’m an elf forever, but, alas, must go and eat some cereal. I hope you’ve enjoyed Holiday Ornaments Part 2 as much as I enjoy smelling my hot glue gun heat up. Happy tree trimming to you and yours!

I had a sneaking suspicion it was in our storage room, but to get there, I have to go outside and down creepy steps and into a musty dark room that may or may not be a huge cardboard condominium space for mice, and I just wasn’t in the mood, thankyouverymuch, to venture down there. But after some time (it was a full week) of trying to use inferior glue for my projects, I mustered up the courage and charged on over, making sure to bring a thwapping stick to ward off any potential critters. I came back with my gun PLUS a folder of old collages I made. I am excellent at making collages. But never mind that. On with the show!

The return of my old pal Glue Gun inspired me to make some awesome holiday ornaments for my fam and friends. Tree ornaments make excellent gifts for the following reasons:

• Who doesn’t love hanging up ornaments and remembering the person that gave it to them fondly? That fondly remembered person could be you. Do it for the glory.
• Ornaments make for thoughtful keepsakes, but the giftee doesn’t have to find a place to put it all-year long. Folks don’t like having to dig through their nasty dark storage rooms to find all the crap you made for them and display it every time you come over. There’s always space for a new ornament. And always an appropriate time to take it down until next year.
• This one’s the clincher: ornaments are super cheap and easy to make and/or personalize.

In this post, I’m going to focus exclusively on fun with glass bulbs and I have to begin with one of my two amazing Internet discoveries this week: you can pour floor cleaner into a glass bulb and then shake glitter up in there and it will stick! The other discovery is a soft-serve swirl of two of my favorite things: Ryan Gosling and libraries. I’ll give you a moment to dwell on that dreamy, sneezy face.

Ok, back to work. It’s really easy to make these:

Here’s what you need:

• Empty glass bulbs (from a craft store, between $3-$5 for 6), clean of dust or floaty crap
• Glitter
• Floor cleaner (I just used all purpose lemon cleaner)
• Paper towel or a rag

Then I got even more creative (read: found my glue gun) and decided to up the ante. I made a green glitter bulb. Green like the Grinch.

Then, since Grinchy-poo’s heart grew 3 sizes, I cut out three felt hearts and sewed them together.

Then I HOT GLUED that sucker onto the green bulb. Stink.Stank.Stunk!  Grinch ornament. I reaallllly ammmmmm a heeeeel!

If you’re glitter-less, which you should not be, you can always just stuff stuff into the glass bulbs. For my niece who was a flower girl in my wedding, I tucked some pink ribbon and some flower/wedding confetti into a bulb. It turned out quite cute. The ribbon moves around of it’s own will but always looks neat and she’ll be able to shake the confetti around, not to mention remember how awesome her aunt is every year, until the ribbon gets old and shriveled and the confetti bleached from sunlight and her kids will be like, “What IS this ugly thing?” and she’ll say, “Once, I was a little girl, just like you and I was a beautiful flower girl in the best wedding ever. And maybe then they will go on some sort of magical journey together having to do with bringing confetti to people in need.

I also have a friend who lives in the South and misses the snow and Michigan in general this time of year. So I clipped a piece of my Christmas tree, doused the ends in glitter and shoved it in my last glass bulb.

Then I hot glued (!!!) a felt Michigan on it. It looks so pretty. Look at it on the tree. Now I just have to figure out how to mail it.

Is anyone else exhausted from looking at pictures of amazing ornaments? I can’t concentrate anymore because “Total Eclipse of the Heart” is on my Pandora station. So I’m going to leave you with these bulbs of wisdom and beauty for now and we’ll talk more in Part 2 of my Holiday ornament posts. It’s got robots in it.

We chose to read both of Garrison Keillor’s Good Poems books, a compilation of poems that the popular radio voice and author liked so much he read them on his show, The Writer’s Almanac. This is a great bundle of poems and extra lovable to me because I’m not real familiar with poetry and would like to be one of those people who spouts off relevant favorite poets when necessary. Shel Silverstein, though still beloved, doesn’t hold the same prestige at dinner parties as he did when I was eight. And, let me tell you, my dinner parties didn’t hold that much prestige when I was eight either because my brother was always sneaking in and sticking my teapot up his nose and also, the only fake food I had to serve was a plastic hamburger that was red in the middle until you poured hot water over it and then it turned brown. Because that’s how you cook meat, right? Hold it under the faucet?

Annnnnyway, while paging through these books in the past, I’ve found familiar authors that I already loved and discovered new ones that led me to look into more of their work. I liked the poems so much, I started taping them up around my house so that I could read some when I woke up in the morning or while I was cooking, or while I was “fartin’ around”. I even found a poem to read at our wedding. It’s called Here and you can read it there. The book is divided into 19 categories, including Lovers, Failure, Snow, and my favorite, Yellow, poems about all things yellow: lights, eggs, hair of people who claimed to kiss Elvis, etc.  Adorable.

Keillor’s second collection, Good Poems for Hard Times, was helpful for Barb because the vet mentioned in front of her that she was a fatty so, on top of puking and riding in the car and getting a shot, she was also confronted with the fact that plus-size cats just aren’t accepted in this society. She had to face it: she’ll never get back down to her street cat size. It was a difficult day for her. So this second book, which is a collection of poems to read in, uh, hard times, was perfect.

This sequel is also divided into sections including Let It Spill, Whatever Happens, and Simpler Than I Could Find Words For. Have you ever had a friend that’s going through a crappy situation and you wind up Googling “what to say when a friend’s co-worker asks if she’s preggers and she’s not” or “how to comfort people who broke up with a-holes without saying what an a-hole that a-hole is in case they get back together”? Wouldn’t it be easier to be like, “Oh, I will just look in my trusty book under Simpler Than I Could Find Words For and send a genius poem to my friend.” It would be easier. I’m telling you.

I love this poem by Galway Kinnel, who I feel like I’m cosmically aligning with lately because I’ve been opening up random books to pages of his poems and reading Michelle Williams interviews that mention his name. Sooo, just those two times, but it happened in the same week so I’m counting it. Don’t judge. Here’s the poem. It’s short. Read it.

Prayer by Galway Kinnell

“Whatever happens. Whatever what is is is what I want. Only that. But that.”

That’ s like a mantra. That’s awesome.

Also, this poem, by my favorite woman ever, Grace Paley, which I put in my office for days when I would rather do anything but write: The Poet’s Occasional Alternative.

What I particulary love about these books is what Keillor (or whoever writes his book jackets) says about poetry: “Forget what you’ve learned about poetry in school (that it’s complex, opaque, a problem to be solved in 1500 words due tomorrow). Poetry is the last preserve of honest speech and the outspoken heart. It holds the cadence of common life.”

That makes me want to read poetry. It kind of made Barb want to puke again but, whatever, she’s kind of a snotty hipster cat. She only likes poems that are ironic. Look at her point at the books with sarcasm:

It’s FREE candy season, a celebration I still FREEly take part in, even as an adult because I cannot turn down free treats. Doesn’t matter if I’m not hungry or if I already have a bellyache from the free treats I consumed moments earlier. If there’s a bowl of Sweet Tarts or a popcorn ball or even those gross black and orange wrapped half-taffy/half-regurgitated peanut things, I’m going to eat them all because somewhere in the back of my mind there’s a 7-year-old dressed up like a cat for the third year in a row screaming, “TAKE THE CANDY! FREE CANDY! HOARD IT AND PULL OUT THE NAME-BRAND PIECES AT LUNCH TO IMPRESS PEOPLE!”

Halloween is the only holiday that you get just as much booty as the other kids…except the kids who had their parents drive them around instead of walking and got to go to double the amount of houses…and the rich kids who got full size candy bars, probably just delivered to their door because they were too busy eating Lunchables and wearing Guess Jeans and not sharing their rooms to trick-or-treat. But aside from those kids, they must of only made up like 1%, our candy wealth was just as respectable as everyone else’s on October the 31st.

The rest of the year, the “treats” in my house were most assuredly tricked. My mother, who I may have mentioned before, made it her number one job to brainwash us into believing that being broke was absolutely the greatest thing ever, didn’t fail to bring her zany wisdom to realm of snacks. Along with her “love grows best in little mobile homes” and “You know, I’m glad we don’t have money because if we had new clothes/cable/heat we wouldn’t be so close!” mottos, Moms loved to get “creative” with our afternoon treats.

 This often involved tricking us into some sort of game like “Let’s Pretend We Grew Up in the Depression like Grandma” (bread crusts and syrup) or the ever-popular “Magic Saltines” in which we were allowed to imagine any delicious dessert we wanted and then eat a saltine and pretend we were eating said delicious dessert. If that was getting old, she would give a lackluster treat a new name, such as, S’mlesses, which were S’mores without that pesky chocolate part.

I’m not complaining (Mom, I’m not complaining!). The end result of this kind of indoctrination is an adult who will be satisfied by cold buttered noodles and a questionable banana for dinner, and has earned the nickname “Seriously, you’re like a goat” from her husband. On this glorious Halloween holiday, though,  part of me loves reveling in straight-up Treat Greed, stockpiling my brand-name bounty on the dining room table and refusing to trade with anyone unless they agree to relinquish their Reese’s Pieces for two of my Tootsie Rolls because I convince them that two is better than one. The fools! This weekend, the cold noodles can take a backseat. I’ve got some sugary no-trick treats to collect.

*Editorial note: The author took liberties with facts in this post. We actually had heat. Also, I never got a Reese’s Pieces out of anyone. I was always on the Tootsie Roll end of that deal.

• To convince people you’re not anti-social…without having to go outside.
• Pass off your sub-par cleaning skills as Halloween decoration (Keep the cobwebs. Clean your toilet.)
• Good way to get the person you’re stalking to come over and check out that new shrine you’ve been working on.
• Built-in group to pitch your new pyramid scheme to.
• Because I have some great fall party themes and I’m going to tell you about them right nnnnnnnnn…

Now.

1. Goonies Never Say Die: A The Goonies viewing party

Everyone loves the Goonies and if they don’t, you should definitely not be friends with them. Unless they’re too young to have watched Goonies, and if they are, stop being a creep and hang out with people your own age and no Internet priveleges for a week. Goonies is the perfect blustery day, kind of scary, but more just goofy fall flick.

To have a Goonies Never Say Die party, make a pre-viewing dinner based on the movie with delectable eats such as:

“It’s Wet Ain’t It” drinks, preferably water that’s as brown as ice tea

Pinchers of Peril main course: this could be lobster, if you’re rich and famous or anything served with chopsticks.

OR Sloth burgers: serve kind of gross looking burgers with something drooling off of them and call them Sloth burgers or stack ‘em high and call them Big MOUTH Burgers.

One Eyed WillPEAs: I’m so clever.

For dessert: Truffle Shuffle truffles, mini Baby Ruths and, of course, ice cream: “They got Pralines and Cream. And they got Mississippi Mud. And they got Chocolate Eruption!”

Have your dinner and a movie, maybe trade favorite lines, throw a treasure hunt, or get drunk and practice your Sloth voice. Then, when everyone is obviously tired and looking for an excuse to leave, repeat the entire scene from the bottom of the well and every time they go for their car keys tell them it’s allllllll gonna be over the second they ride up Troy’s bucket. Also if they ask where the bathroom is say, “Mikey, this isn’t the kind of place you want to go to the bathroom in” and refuse to let them use it.

2. BOOze: A Scary Mixology Party

Too hungover to think of a creative party idea? This party theme is just charming enough to get the girls dressed up as slutty cops and angels and clowns over without enticing those cerebral chicks who dress up as Silenced by Capitalism or A Grassroots Movement and harsh everyone’s buzz.

Make ghostly, Halloween themed drinks like these these from Endless Simmer. Brain Hemorrhage anyone? Don’t bother fussing with cleverly named spooky food. Serve the drunkard’s dream feast: pigs in a blanket. And keep ‘em comin’.

3. Poe Posh: Edgar Allan, Party Animal

Edgar Allen Poe really was kind of party animal. If you count being an alcoholic and marrying your cousin and dying delusional in the middle of the street, unexplainably, in someone else’s clothes, as “wild N crazy”. If you want to be Spooky Chic this October, throw a posh Poe themed bash in honor of the famous macabre author and America’s first Goth kid.

Ideas from the party can be gleaned right from the themes of Poe’s writing: death, horror, decomposing bodies, bloody hearts, ravens, anything “Grotesque and Arabesque”. To decorate, drape black lace over everything and cut out these templates of ravens from Martha to put in your windows. Add a 19th century feel by lighting lots of candles, designating your front room the “parlor” and having everyone drop their annoying &*@#ing cell phones in a basket by the door (this is also a good way to avoid your guests getting text messages about more awesome parties). Have party-goers dress in all black, drink mulled wine from fake skulls. Serve “Poe” boy sandwiches and any gorey side dishes you can think of. If you’re having trouble thinking of cutesy gross nicknames for your snacks, deem the whole menu Consumption Buffet. Get it? Like to consume but also like consumption, the disease Poe’s wife and pretty much everyone else he knew died from?

4. Don’t Leaf Me: Emotionally Unstable Parties

If you’ve got an inkling your significant other is planning a breakup before the holiday gift-giving and family-visiting season gets going, why not host a Don’t Leaf Me party? If there was ever a way to convince your lover that you’re not crazy/needy, it’s by getting all your mutual friends together and having them sit awkwardly through a DVD presentation of all the reasons you two should stay together 4 EVA.

Decorate with dead leaf garland (dead like his love for you) like this stuff from my previous post. Serve leaf-y green salad, Maple wood smoked meats, and those little leaf-shaped cookies with the frosting in the middle for dessert. Damn, I love those cookies. Surprise your sweetheart by letting him think it’s just the two of you settling in for a nice long talk about your relationship. Then, when he walks in, “SURPRISE! I brought Great-Grandma over from the nursing home. And I taught her how to lip-synch to Al Green’s Let’s Stay Together!”

If you like the leaf idea, but have never had a boyfriend to beg to stay, you could try these other versions of fun-with-the-word-leaf:

Leaf Me Alone: One last hurrah before you go into hibernation for the winter.

Please BeLEAF Me: If you’re on trial, invite the jurors over for treats n’ bribes.

5. STUFFed: A Fat Pants Party

By November, chances are your britches and your budget are going to be getting tighter, especially the day after Thanksgiving. You could go to the mall on Black Friday and get new clothes that fit, but you’re broke and they’ve still got that restraining order on you at K-Mart. So instead, invite your girlfriends over to a STUFFed soiree:  as in, I stuffed myself so much yesterday, I can’t fit into any of my stuff, so give me your stuff.

On the day after Turkey Day, have gal pals come in their comfiest elastic-banded clothes with armloads of STUFF they don’t want anymore. This could be anything from skinny jeans to jewelry to toaster ovens (In fact, it’s better if you add accessories and/or appliances so that guests that don’t wear the same size clothes as anyone else can still get some good junk). Put all of the STUFF out in one room for the ladies to browse and designate another room as a dressing area. Then give each guest an old shopping bag and tell them to load up with one-ladie’s-trash type treasures. If hair-pulling ensues, why that’s all the more entertaining, and at least you didn’t have to get up at 6 AM and wait in line to do it.

After you’ve all loaded up your bags,  fill up your bellies on Thanksgiving leftovers (or Chinese takeout if you’re sick of turkey and pie) until your guests aren’t even sure they’ll fit into their “new” clothes. Everyone leaves with full bellies and full shopping bags for FREE. Plus, you’ve politely offered to haul all their crap to a donation site the next day so it’s extra kharma for you, little piggy!