With Hannukkah upon us and Christmas right around the corner, we received a plea from a reader to tackle gifts for girls. » 12/05/13 3:45pm 12/05/13 3:45pm

Jolie Kerr is a cleaning expert and advice columnist. This holiday season she's got gift ideas for the clean, or not-so-clean, person in your life. Are you dirty? Email her. » 12/03/13 3:50pm 12/03/13 3:50pm

You know what? Forget all those other people in your life—your BFF, your parents, your boss, your co-workers, your college roommates and all the rest of them. They are probably going to get lots of cool crap from nice people just like you this holiday season. I say, it's time to be selfish! » 11/29/13 3:00pm 11/29/13 3:00pm

This time Thursday you'll likely be sitting down with a heaping pile of food with some people you want to kill even though you have the same genes. But maybe you'll be sitting down with people you want to kill that you don't have the same genes as because they're your significant other's family. Despite that… » 11/27/13 5:40pm 11/27/13 5:40pm

Black Friday draweth closer and with it, the intensifying pressure to get a leg up on your holiday shopping. You know the routine: unload your wallets and stuff those stockings. » 11/26/13 3:20pm 11/26/13 3:20pm

It's November 25 — exactly one month until Christmas, exactly one month to watch Elf on repeat — and even if you think the gift-giving season shouldn't officially start until the turkey dinner has been reduced to leftovers, it's already happening. Black Friday and Cyber Monday — why even wait for those? Everyone's got… » 11/25/13 4:45pm 11/25/13 4:45pm

Fuck, you forgot that it’s Mother’s Day, didn’t you? And now you’re thinking of trying to play it off with a quick phone call and an impromptu recitation of a found poem you’ve cobbled together from an old modernism anthology that you only half-read. Your mom will see right through that, of course, and she’ll be… » 5/12/13 5:00pm 5/12/13 5:00pm

As we're all aware by now, the modern incarnation of Valentine's Day is nothing more than a consumer fabrication to get us to splash out on Godiva chocolate and a bouquet of Birds of Paradise for the person we hump on the regs. However, for those of us who are single, it can still be a crappy benchmark of the… » 2/09/13 2:30pm 2/09/13 2:30pm

Unfortunately, the holidays are here. The sooner we purchase presents for our favorite sad sacks, the faster they can sigh "thanks?" and we can all get back to our miserable little lives. So here's what to buy the grumpiest, grouchiest hateful little monsters in your life. If you have the sick need to keep these… » 11/25/12 2:30pm 11/25/12 2:30pm

The Manic Pixie Dream Girl! We all know one, but that doesn't necessarily mean we know what to buy her for the holidays. What's the perfect gift for the free spirit who lives to inspire, dance in the rain and experience each moment with childlike wonder? Turns out that there are lots of great things. Let's have a… » 11/24/12 6:00pm 11/24/12 6:00pm

You don't get to choose your family. And so sometimes we wind up in families with people who are...less than choose-worthy. Then again, a lot of people have a lot of mother-in-laws that they like a lot! Because mother-in-laws are a lot like people (some legends hold that they actually are people!!!), which means that… » 11/24/12 2:00pm 11/24/12 2:00pm

Your favorite budding feminist's name will go down in HERtory if you buy her these awesome gifts, we swear! At the very least, she'll never say she's "not a feminist, but..." again. » 11/23/12 5:45pm 11/23/12 5:45pm

As you get older, you will probably find that more and more of your friends are falling in love with each other and tying the knot. Despite this being a practice that human beings have done for thousands of years, the newlyweds in your life will quite possibly act annoyingly smug and proud about their nuptials, but —… » 11/23/12 2:15pm 11/23/12 2:15pm

Got some crafty people on your holiday gift list? Fear not — a present like one of these is bound to please even the pickiest of Do It Yourselfers. (And — self-interested bonus! — it virtually guarantees years of awesome knitted/crocheted/sewn or otherwise home-built gifts for you in turn.) » 11/22/12 4:15pm 11/22/12 4:15pm

A good pair of scissors…

What do you, the most unabashedly selfish and inconsiderate member of your friend group, buy this holiday season for that one person in your life whose giving is not restricted by our Gregorian calendar? To defeat the charitable people in the world, we must first understand the charitable people in the world, and the… » 11/22/12 2:00pm 11/22/12 2:00pm

Shopping for an out-of-work Eeyore? Or a glass-half-full Pollyanna? Or some other children's-entertainment metaphor about being unemployed? A lot of people are slogging through joblessness this holiday season, and I'll bet they could use a little cheer right about now. Even if your friend isn't in dire,… » 11/21/12 6:00pm 11/21/12 6:00pm

Is your friend the kind of girl who wears a rings above her knuckle, takes pictures of herself smoking weed, wears a bra as a shirt but also wears shirts without bras? Does she very carefully craft a look that says, "I don't give a fuck" but in reality gives quit a few fucks? Do chains and whips excite her? Answer yes… » 11/21/12 4:00pm 11/21/12 4:00pm