Presents of Mine

For those readers who may have been following yours truly around these assorted pages for oh-so-many sorted years, you know it's that time again; that time when humbly offered up are some holiday gift-giving suggestions for the truly needy, the truly beloved and the truly challenged in the home business.
No expense is spared in the pursuit of this endeavor, although certainly every expense possible is avoided in the actual procurement of said gifts.
That would sort of defeat the purpose of the whole thing, wouldn't it?
Last year at this time, it was said it had not been a fun - much less funny - year and 2010 has turned out to be not very light-hearted. There are still serious problems and serious issues that all of us face individually and personally.
But that doesn't mean we can't laugh a little, too. You just can't take this stuff too seriously.
So with tongue placed once more firmly in cheek, we offer up some special gifts for some special people.

• Mike Duke: Yet another home strategy at Walmart ... but maybe this time one that actually works.
• John Piazza: Another pony to ride in 2011.
• Cotton growers: Less acreage to plant next year so prices are higher.
• Carol Meyrowitz: More of the same.
• Mike Ullman: The only Kohl's sale he really wants to see, the one with the letters GOB ahead of it.
• Alan Gladstone: The Nobel Prize for mathematics for being the only one in the home textiles business smart enough to know that there are more windows in a house than beds.
• Joe Granger: DVF for WM.
• Eddie Lampert: The ghosts of retail past - Richard Warren Sears, Alvah Curtis Roebuck and Sebastian S. Kresge - visiting on Christmas eve.
• Cotton growers: Much less acreage to plant next year so prices are much higher.
• Steve Temares and Art Stark: More new orders for more new opening order discounts.
• Laura Albers: Howard's old calculator.
• Barry Leonard: Sully getting a map for the Ganges River.
• Terry Lundgren: A new My Macy's program that merchandises assortments by zip code.
• Cotton growers: Much, much less acreage to plant next year so prices are much, much higher.
• Kevin Mansell: Apartments 10, 11 and 12.
• Josue Gomes de Silva: Lucro, lots and lots of lucro.
• Greg Steinhafel: Less expectations, more pay for shoppers.
• Cotton growers: Virtually no acreage to plant next year so prices are virtually through the roof.
• Cotton users: Cotton.
• Polyester suppliers: Chapstick for all the lip licking they have been doing recently.