Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Christmas gifts for an author

So from my mother I got a glass powder bowl. Wtf? What does she think? I will sit at my dressing table mirror powdering my face with real old-fashioned powder? Where will I get the powder? I have no idea. But yes, it is a lovely thing. Cut glass, with a beautiful faceted knob on the lid, and a lovely kind of mother-of-pearl base to the bowl.

From my sister I got a hat-pin holder. A hat-pin holder? I wear hats that need pins, you think? But again, it is a lovely thing. Victorian, bone china with daffodils hand-painted on it. And a mother-of-pearl ring which I will most definitely wear.

From one of my sons, Malcolm Gladwell's The Tipping Point, because he knows that as a contemporary author who has to market her own books, I have to know about such things.

Which of my relatives, do you think, really knows me?

8 comments:

Mark said...

"with a beautiful faceted knob"
*snigger*

anyway...
-Tipping Point is a good book
-you can use the hat pins to stab errant family members when they ignore your gifty needs next year
-you can keep your Columbian marching powder in your 'powder' bowl


pip pip
Merry Winterval

Elizabeth Baines said...

Hee hee, Mark.

Tania Hershman said...

Ha!! Reminds me of the year two of my closest friends got me almost identical birthday presents, those little notebooks made of handmade paper... one with leaves still in it so that you can't really even write on it. I didn't write by hand, I never wrote by hand... and they were in a writing group with me! Who really knows you, eh?

Elizabeth Baines said...

Indeed, Tania!!

Rachel Fenton said...

Perhaps your mother wanted to give you an old fashioned style heirloom, or something you could imagine a provinence for as the basis for a story? I'll tell you what though, I'm not buying any of you presents! (Boots sells loose powder for use with puffs, btw!)

Happy New Year!

Elizabeth Baines said...

Happy New Year, Rachel!

Unknown said...

I agree, useful is better than lovely but useless, which always reminds me of Oscar Wilde... Havae a great 2010, E!

Elizabeth Baines said...

Have a great one yourself, Barbara!