No Gift? No Problem.

PC: @southern.detour

I love Christmas. I love cooking. I love the lights. I love entertaining. I love the tree. I love mulled wine. I love spending time with my family. I love celebrating with friends. I love the mistletoe. I love faux fur and opaque tights. I love any opportunity to celebrate with food, and drink, and loved ones. I love it all…all but the shopping. I really, really dislike the shopping. Sure it’s fun to watch someone open a gift you know they will absolutely love, a gift that you would have purchased regardless of the holiday because it’s just so…. perfect for that person. Sadly, five percent of the gifts I purchase are that special…maybe less. Most gifts from moi are purchased just days before the holiday and therefore typically involve a parking garage argument, messy store shelves, lengthy lines, a gift selected with more thought on GTHO (getting the hell out) and less on the recipient, oh and general misery. MISERY.

  So here we are, five days, one hundred and twenty hours, and seven thousand, two hundred minutes away from Christmas and I have zero gifts purchased. ZERO.

So what’s a girl or guy to do just days from the holiday and gift-less?  Let me enlighten you:

The Mall: Whatever you do, do NOT cave and go to the mall out of desperation. It’s a trap and feels like a good solution, but DON’T DO IT. The mall is a terrible idea and will ruin you for three days…honestly, you may never fully recover at this point so best to avoid it all-together.

Theme: Choose a theme or gift and get everyone the SAME thing, last year was the year of the Swell Bottle for my family and the year prior, lululemon. Find an single item or at least a single store where you can go online and make all of your purchases at once. Last year my nephew was only one, but some day he will use that lulu yoga mat I purchased for him. Whatever. DONE. Pass the eggnog.

Unique: Try to choose something that the recipient wouldn’t necessarily purchase for themselves or something they may not know about yet. I love receiving presents that I wouldn’t typically buy for myself or spend money on, for example; these Anthropology canapé plates…I probably wouldn’t buy them on my own since they don’t match the rest of my serveware and they’ll go out of style in a couple of years, but I would totally love and appreciate getting them as a gift, in fact I would fight dirty for these in a game of Rob Your Neighbor. Wait….I think I just figured out RYN…you buy a gift YOU want so you have a shot at really having it. Is that what everyone does??

 So what is this special gift that can be purchased for both men and women, the young and the old, is unique, inexpensive, and can be purchased online so you don’t have to step foot in a terrible, awful, crowded, messy mall next week? Well call me your Christmas angel because I’m here to tell you about the gift of twenty sixteen, the Wood Watch.

I had been looking for a new watch and wanted something that contrasted nicely with all of my silver, gold, dainty, feminine bracelets, something with a masculine undertone that wouldn’t make me look like a total fuss with bangles and jewels running up my arm. My watch arrived in the mail in a beautiful (and very heavy!) wooden case that made receiving it all the more special.

 For all of you who still need gifts, THIS IS IT. These watches are unique and quite frankly, blowing up, so may not be at this price point for very long. BTW: These watches, look amazing on men so if you like them on me, imagine a tan and toned, leathered, hairy armed man wearing this wood. Too much? Who cares.

Men’s Shop

Women’s Shop

Brittany’s Shop (aka my watch)

 As I said, call me your Christmas angel. Oh and don’t forget to place your purchase using one of the THREE links right above and you’ll be my Christmas angel.

JORD is offering FREE EXPRESS holiday shipping if you place your order by Wednesday at noon.

Merry Christmas Bunnies,

Brittany

This post was sponsored by JORD Wood Watches

PC: @jessicarevill

PC: @houseofsmilla

PC: @bylookorbybook

PC: @lavenderandlaundry

Watch Gift Ideas
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Happy Thirty First to My Uterus

Photography: Noah Berg

I was a happy girl. Happily thirty one years old. Happy in my existing relationship. Happy to be selfishly focused on myself. Happy to live in my tiny overpriced apartment in Denver. Happy to have money to spend on expensive products and weekend trips with friends. Happy to be a proud auntie. Happy to be on my schedule. My. Own. Schedule. I didn’t even own a pet.

You know how in your early twenties you always assumed that by the time you were thirty you’d be married and have children? I know, I did too. I think that happens because thirty seems sooooo far away and marriage and children seem so…well a natural part of life. Thirty to a twenty year old is basically forty to a thirty year old and when I’m forty I fully intend to have three kids, a Range Rover, a country club membership, a professional grade kitchen in my home…and I’ll be even thinner than I am today, after those three children. God, I can’t wait until I’m forty.

Last summer after a four year relationship ended I found myself in Denver…in Denver as a single lady with a lot of married friends. And so I got on Tinder. Now, hold your horses, Nelly…I wasn’t getting on Tinder seeking love or even lust…I was simply seeking a platonic relationship with a guy who I could text early on a Saturday morning, “Wake up loser, we’re going to the farmers market”. All my guy friends in Denver were married to all my girlfriends and sometimes a girl needs a little less girl-talk and an ice cold beer. I was looking for a casual, laid back guy who would let me hit his world like a hurricane and wouldn’t be heartbroken when I finally met my financier, country clubbin’, three kid baby daddy. A friend. Who was a guy. Casual. Easy.

I was heading to Europe for about two weeks when I felt it was an appropriate time for me to start scouting out some guys, in fact, I was en route to Denver International Airport when I swiped for the first time, RIGHT. Fast forward 18 hours later, I landed in Rome and after a hot shower and three cups of Italian coffee, opened up the app and found that overnight I had several matches, ohhhweee. Over the next two weeks I had friendly conversations with guys in Denver and attempted  the same with guys in Italy, lost in translation is a real thing and sometimes its best just to be drunk in a nightclub making out when you literally can’t exchange words (speaking not of my time in Rome), I digress…

I’ll save my Tinder approach and several other stories of love, pre-date arguments, and GIFs for another post.

So I matched with a guy with whom I found easy to converse, totally boss-able, and a little sarcastic . He also had photos of himself fly fishing in Alaska which initially peaked my interest after I had previously found out that a guided fishing trip is upwards of $400 per day (bonus). The conversation started with, “Brett, how strong of a fisherman are you?”. After a while we played, “Name Your Pizza Toppings”, and found that we were truly compatible (pepperoni and mushroom), we set a date upon my arrival home from Europe; we met 24 hours later for oysters, prosecco, and pizza and the rest (sixteen months) is history. He was the perfect out-of-a-serious-relationship relationship. Forty one, never been married, no kids, owned his own company, chopped his own wood, smelled like whiskey, hand rolled cigarettes, and body odor, he was tough man with a gentle and thoughtful heart. Oh and he bought me waders on our first fishing trip in Vail and the friend zone ended right there.

About a week into knowing one another he invited me to his house to make me dinner and mid-steak grilling confessed nervously that he had something to share with me…he had a vasectomy. At the time I wasn’t sure how I felt so ended up brushing it off due to the fact that I couldn’t figure out why he felt the need to tell me something so personal when we weren’t even dating (I was friend-zoning him for a while, a very short while). He also opened the door that night without a shirt on. WITHOUT A SHIRT ON. I mean we had not even kissed at this point and the guy so brazenly receives me in his home with a bare chest? I think I said something along the lines of, “Oh, where’s your shirt?”, so although he quickly covered himself, things were progressing…rapidly.

Fast forward six months and I was in my annual at the gyno and casually talking to my nurse practitioner. My nurse practitioner, God, I wish we were friends…she’s just the coolest. I think she’s probably my mom’s age and I always look forward to that one time of year I get to see her, or maybe another UTI visit or something in-between, but a couple times a year. I always want to ask for her number, but realize everyone probably feels that way and I doubt Marsha wants to hang out with me so I keep it professional.

So Marsha and I are chatting and here is how our conversation unfolds:

Marsha: Soooooo, you still dating that one guy? With the vasectomy right?

Brittany: Oh yeah! Yeahhhhhh, we’re still dating…..

Marsha: How’s that going? That vasectomy is convenient, right?

Brittany: Oh my goshhhhhhh, tooootally…I KNOW.

Marsha: So do you think you want to have any kids?

Brittany: Welllllll….you know it’s SO funny you ask, Marsha, I was just talking to my best friend about this….you know how when you are younger you always just assume you’ll have kids and then now I am like at that AGE and I just don’t have the desire or see it today…it’s so weird.

Marsha: Ohhhhh yeah, well you do NOT have to have kids to have a fulfilling or purposeful life.

Brittany: Yeah…. THANK YOU. Totally…(in thought about if life really would be fulfilling and purposeful as an AFL, auntie for life)

Marsha: BUT Brittany, if there’s ANY chance you even THINK you might want a kid…you need to know by 33 and you MUST make up your mind by 35.

Brittany: Oh…really?

Marsha: Have you seen a fertility specialist yet?

Brittany: Pardon?

Marsha: You should book an appointment to talk about your options for freezing your eggs. I’ll give you a referral.

Marsha is a total bitch.

I was set up. I was made to feel comfortable, and accepted, and I didn’t deserve for my very own GIRLFRIEND (nurse practitioner) to throw my age in my FACE and treat me like I wasn’t twenty three years old, plus eight years. Like what was she trying to pull in there? The only thing I had ever thought about freezing was a bottle of Tito’s and Girl Scout Cookies.

Upon my departure from the doctor’s office I called my girlfriend and told her my horrifying story of my pregnancy firing squad and you guys…she told me it had JUST happened to her a month prior. I mean, granted she is one year older than me, but still…STILL. It just wasn’t the time for that conversation.

It didn’t take that long before I realized that although Marsha was being totally dramatic,  I guess it’s real thing that we have to think about and decide on, which is completely ridiculous. What if I simply don’t want to have a family for another twelve years? I don’t wake up and want to be married yet. I don’t wake up and want kids yet. I still feel like I am twenty three, okay twenty five, and although I’m so thankful to not feel stressed about marriage and family, I am starting to really stress over the fact that I am not stressing over marriage and family. Am I supposed to just have babies with someone who will simply suffice in the meantime if I even remotely think I want to have children? I don’t want that….it’s not the fairy-tale I envisioned. Is life not a fairy-tale?

W. T. F.

Yours in Sleeping In and Selfish Desires,

Brittany