Dave Barry’s 2021 Holiday Gift Guide

The holiday season is a time when people all around the world pause from their hectic daily lives to participate in cherished holiday traditions that have been handed down from generation to generation, no matter how stupid they are.

Take, for example, the Yule Goat. We are not making the Yule Goat up. It is an actual holiday tradition over in Sweden, a foreign nation that is also known as “Denmark,” or, for short, “The Netherlands.” According to Wikipedia, the Yule Goat — in Swedish it’s the “Gävle Goat” — dates back to ancient pagan festivals, but in 1966, “the tradition got a whole new life after someone came up with the idea to make a giant straw goat.”

Ha ha! What a fun idea “someone” had! Make a giant goat statue out of a highly flammable material, during a time of year when people are consuming a lot of alcohol! What could possibly go wrong?

Arson, for one. Wikipedia states that the Gävle Goat “has been the subject of repeated arson attacks, and, despite security measures and the nearby presence of a fire station, the goat has been burned to the ground most years since its first appearance in 1966. As of December 2019, the goat has been damaged 37 times.”

In other words, the Gävle Goat is a mostly successful holiday tradition, in the same sense that the Titanic had a mostly successful maiden voyage.

Here in the United States, we may not set fire to giant straw livestock statues, but we have our own unique holiday traditions, such as:

▪ The tradition of violently stabbing the “off” button whenever “The Little Drummer Boy” starts playing on the radio, to avoid being subjected to 37 minutes of helium-enhanced voices shrieking “RUM PA PUM PUM!”

▪ The tradition of spending Christmas Eve attempting to assemble large complex toys that come in hundreds of pieces, with “instructions” consisting of cryptic wordless drawings that for all we know illustrate the reproductive system of a wombat.

But for sheer stupidity, no holiday tradition can compare with our annual Holiday Gift Guide. This is a curated collection of unique gift ideas that we painstakingly select via a “vetting” process that can take us as long as 10 minutes, including a five-minute snack break. Every item in this guide is a real product that you can, for whatever depraved reason, actually buy. We know this because we personally purchased all of these items with the Miami Herald’s money, such as it is.

We have also thoroughly inspected each item from a safe distance with our entire body drenched in hand sanitizer. That is why we are able to offer you our legendary Quality Assurance Warranty of Guaranteed Quality Assuredness: If you purchase any item featured in this gift guide, and you are not completely satisfied, simply place the item in its original packaging and drop it onto a concrete platform from a minimum height of 200 feet. Our operators are standing by.

But enough legal “mumbo jumbo.” Let’s take a look at the items that “passed the audition” for this year’s Holiday Gift Guide, starting with:

YOUR FACE ON A REAL POTATO

$21.99 from amazon.com

Suggested by Sue Eckhardt of Gatesville, Texas, John Lobert of Simpsonville, South Carolina, and Janice Gelb of Melbourne, Australia

Technology has given humanity many wonderful gifts: space travel, Instagram, the George Foreman Grill ... the list goes on and on. But until recently, there is one gift that technology could not give us, and it is something that we, as humans, have ardently desired for literally thousands of years: The ability to put a photograph of our face on a potato.

Well, humanity can rejoice, because our long nightmarish wait is over. Thanks to technology, you can now upload a photograph of your face, or the face of a friend, loved one or famous celebrity, and within a few days you will receive a real potato with the photograph printed on it. If somebody doesn’t win, at minimum, a Nobel Prize for this concept, then we frankly don’t see the point of even HAVING Nobel Prizes.

We don’t know if these photo-potatoes are edible. But they are definitely tasteful.

PEEING PUP GAME

$9.47 from amazon.com

Suggested by Jason Neal of Miami

Do you have youngsters on your holiday gift list, but you’d prefer not to buy them some kind of “high-tech” electronic “gaming system” that costs a lot of “money?” If so, this is the perfect gift for you. The Peeing Pup is a game that children play by passing around a small plastic puppy until it “pees” on one of them. Ha ha! Talk about a fun activity that will provide the kids with endless hours of entertainment for approximately five minutes!

Please note that the Peeing Pup is intended to spray water. You should not fill it with actual dog urine. Although the game would be a LOT more exciting if you did. We’re just saying.

TACTICAL CHRISTMAS STOCKING

$18.18 from amazon.com

Suggested by John Lobert of Simpsonville, South Carolina

The world is an extremely dangerous place. There are threats everywhere, and you need to be prepared for anything. That is why we strongly recommend that you give this tactical Christmas stocking to everybody on your holiday gift list who is interested in survival.

What makes this stocking tactical? It has a zippered pocket, Velcro patches and military-style webbing, so you can attach tactical things to it. Also it is has a camouflage pattern, which means your enemies cannot see it. They’ll be wandering around like idiots going “Where the heck is the stocking?” Of course this could also mean that Santa won’t be able to find it, but what is Santa doing in your house anyway? YOU CAN’T TRUST ANYONE, that is our tactical holiday message.

MEOWY CHRISTMAS CARD

$10.99 plus shipping and handling from Joker Greeting

Suggested by Jerzy Robert Gembura of Abbotsford, British Columbia, Canada

Here’s a great gift to send to the cat-lover on your list. This is a card that, when activated, plays a hideous recording of people imitating cats meowing the tune of a Christmas carol. The fun part is, you can’t turn it off! It just keeps going and going and going and going until the battery runs out. Until then, you’re stuck with this really annoying sound that won’t go away. In other words, it’s exactly like owning an actual cat, but with less odor.

CHICKEN HELMETS

$7.49 from amazon.com

Suggested by John Lobert of Simpsonville, South Carolina

Pick up any newspaper today and you are likely to see a front-page story about the national epidemic of chickens and other poultry suffering from concussions. No doubt you have often asked yourself: “What can I, as one lone individual, do about this?”

The answer is, you can equip your vulnerable fowl with tiny helmets. According to the Amazon website, these helmets are “suitable for parrots, small chickens, ducks and other poultry.” The website also states that the helmets “can prevent sunshine and rain when you take your chicks out.” That’s right: In addition to preventing injury, these helmets apparently can CONTROL THE WEATHER. On the other hand, many of the Amazon commenters say that the helmets are way too small for actual chickens. But we figure they’re worth it anyway, if only to stop global climate change.

CAT BACKPACK

$28.99 from amazon.com

Suggested by Ralph Kirshner of New Hampton, New Hampshire

If you own a cat, the odds are that you like to take it with you everywhere — to the supermarket, the office, the golf course, the opera, funerals, etc. But holding your cat in your hand can be awkward during certain activities, such as playing the piano, or snorkeling. That’s why you, or the cat lover on your holiday gift list, need this cat backpack, which enables you to carry your cat “hands-free.” It has holes so your cat can breathe, which we think is a thoughtful touch, and it’s transparent, so your cat can see the people behind you, who will definitely not be pointing at you and laughing.

HOLY CRAP BREAKFAST CEREAL

$9.99 from amazon.com

Suggested by Pharmaross of Fort Myers, Florida

Nutritionists agree that the most important meal of the day is breakfast, because that is when we drink coffee, without which we would fall back asleep at 7:30 a.m. and miss work and get fired. But breakfast is also when we ingest critical nutrients, the “fuel” that our body needs to perform vital tasks such as digesting our breakfast. And we can think of no better bodily fuel than Holy Crap brand breakfast cereal, which according to its official website, contains “certified organic, non-GMO, kosher and gluten free ingredients, such as hemp seed, buckwheat, chia seeds, and gluten-free oats.”

Yum! If that sounds as fun and tasty to you as it does to us, then you will want to give a bag of Holy Crap to everybody on your gift list. Just think of the look on the face of a small child when he or she or they discover this item in his or her or their holiday stocking. This, truly, is what the holiday season is all about. Regularity.

FART VAC

$11.99 from amazon.com

Suggested by Pharmaross of Fort Myers, Florida, and Rick Jameson of Dublin, Ohio

There was a time when an anti-flatulence device would not have been considered an appropriate holiday gift. Fortunately, that time has passed, which is why we are excited to include the Fart Vac in this year’s Gift Guide.

This is a quality item, made from 100 percent materials, which is based on a proven scientific principle that scientists call “suction.” You stick a rubber tube down your pants, and when a flatulence incident occurs, you squeeze a handheld bulb, which causes the suction to draw the odors into what the manufacturer describes as “an activated carbon filter,” which sounds very scientific.

The Fart Vac is extremely discreet. People will never know you’re using it, unless they happen to notice the bulb in your hand connected to the tube going into your pants. That’s why this is the only anti-flatulence device endorsed by both Warren Buffett and the U.S. Supreme Court.

BAGUETTE BACKPACK

$9.95 plus shipping and handling from Unnecessary Inventions

We have all faced this problem: We wish to buy a loaf of French bread, but we don’t know how we’re going to carry it home from the store. If we put it in a sack, it will stick out the top, as has been demonstrated in thousands of movies and TV shows wherein the actors carry sacks with protruding loaves to indicate that the sack contains groceries.

We are pleased to report that human ingenuity has finally come up with a better solution: The BaguettePack, which is as far as we know the world’s first backpack designed specifically to carry baguettes. Not only is it hands-free, but it’s attractive and sporty. This is an especially good item to have if you or somebody on your list is planning a trip to France, because everybody over there wears a BaguettePack all the time. You will fit right in.

REINDEER MANKINI

$14.99 from amazon.com

Suggested by John Lobert of Simpsonville, South Carolina

Do you have a confident man on your list, a man who is not afraid to “dress to impress?” If so, this is gift for that man. This is a very masculine garment consisting of a pouch and... OK, basically it’s just the pouch, but it has a happy red-nosed reindeer face on it to indicate that it’s a festive holiday costume, as opposed to some kind of pervert exhibitionist sex accessory.

The reindeer mankini, in our opinion, expresses the true message of the holiday season, namely: “I have been drinking.” A man wearing this garment is bound to be the center of attention at holiday gatherings. Be advised that some of this attention could come from the police.

CAT GROOMER

$13.90 from amazon.com

Suggested by Judi Smith of Hollywood

Here’s an item for the cat-lover on your holiday list, and we want to stress right up front that it is not weird at all.

This is a plastic device that you use to groom a cat. And here’s the part that is not at all weird: Instead of holding this device in your hand, you hold it with your teeth. That’s right: You put one end of this device in your mouth and bite down on it, then you lean over and use the other end to groom your cat. So it’s sort of like the way a cat grooms itself, using its mouth, but instead you’re doing it with YOUR mouth. How not weird is THAT? Everybody on your gift list will want one of these devices. Even people who don’t own cats will want one. That’s how non-weird it is.

TURKEY MASK

$16.08 from amazon.com

Suggested by John Lobert of Simpsonville, South Carolina

Do you sometimes feel like going out, but you don’t want to bother with the hassle of putting on makeup? Or maybe you just prefer to be anonymous in public, to “blend into the background,” unnoticed?

If that sounds like you, or some shy person on your holiday list, then you need this item. This is a rubber face mask made to look like a plucked, uncooked Thanksgiving turkey. There are holes for your eyes and mouth, but the rest of your head is completely covered. Not only is it subtle and understated, but it’s every bit as comfortable as you might imagine.

This is the same turkey mask that top celebrities such as Lady Gaga wear when they run errands and wish to avoid the paparazzi. It is also used extensively by the FBI for undercover “sting” operations.

This year, give the gift of invisibility. Give the turkey mask.

List of Participating Individuals / Business

Actors:

Yaritza Acosta

Chanel Andrew

“Enzo Benzo Lorenzo” (animal talent)

Cori Finot

Erika Garcia

Pax Griffin

Madelaine Griffin

Samuel “Sam” Lund- Larson

Nicolas Lund-Larson

Sajoni Ortiz

Mathieu Parry

Mark Malpica

David Ovalle

Claude Pastel

Sebastian Romney

Jenny Romney

Rochelle Rosen

“Tofu” (the cat)

Lana Tymchenko

Kaia Zaney

Ryan Zaney

Special Thanks

Yao Animal Hospital

Jenny Romney (Photoshop)

Getty Images

John Lund (Photo of Chicken Crossing the Road)

Nirvana Condo Association

IPC ArtSpace

This story was originally published December 3, 2021 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Dave Barry’s 2021 Holiday Gift Guide."