Do you realize that Christmas Eve is one week from today?  I’m making a list of gifts that have been given to ME in the past year, gifts that were a success and that you might want to consider buying for someone on your list.

My brother and sister-in-law gave me several pairs of earrings from the Etsy shop Kneehighs-n-Pigtails, and I LOVE them.  They’re so classy and dressy if you’re looking classy and dressy, but they look chic and awesome with t-shirt and jeans, too.

My kids give me Ferrero Rocher chocolates for almost every gift-giving occasion, and I hope they still bring me a box every time they visit me in my nursing home.  They are So. Yummy.  They’re sold at places like Target, Walmart, drugstores, and grocery stores.

I like the whole lavender-vanilla line from Bath & Body Works, but especially the lotion.  I use it as a hand lotion at bedtime to help me sleep, or I put some on during the day if I’m feeling stressed out.  Lavender is usually too sharp and vanilla too cloying, but the mix is perfect.

I bought two Calphalon cake pans off a wedding registry a couple of summers ago and had to struggle not to keep them myself.  I must have made a sufficiently hinty fuss about it, because I got two of them at the next gift-receiving occasion.  I ell-oh-vee-ee them.  My old cake pans used to grab on to chunks of cake, even if I’d been generous with the greasing and the flouring.  My Calphalon ones NEVER stick, and I don’t even have to shake the pan with increasing frustration and vigor.  The cakes just go POP.  These pans are sold at Target and probably other places too, but Target is where I bought them.

Pretty Little Mistakes, by Heather McElhatton.  I loved this book.  It’s a choose-your-own-adventure for grown-ups, and I couldn’t stop playing with it until I’d read every single possible outcome.  In each one you get the satisfaction of knowing the entire rest of your life, including how you die and in some cases your afterlife.  It is so neat.

The Angels & Airwaves album We Don’t Need to Whisper makes me feel all silly and teenagery again.  It’s good music to make out to.

I like my Boston Warehouse bird scissors so much.  They’re nice and sharp; they lock in a closed position if you want them to (the tail flips up to lock them—hee!), and they’re cute.  I also still love my toucan can opener and my bird (-shaped) peeler.  I don’t own all the pieces in the series, so I can’t comment on the, um, beaver whisk.  Not every Target sells this line, but two of the three in my area do.

I love this Andre Renoux print just as much as the day I told Paul I HAD to have it.  And one of these days it will be hung up on the wall rather than leaning against it.

Did you get any particularly successful gifts this past year?