The Goop Gift Guide is Here!




I don't know if you heard the news or not, but Gwyneth's Goop Gift Guide (I call it the 4Gs) came out a few weeks ago. I didn't write about it right away, because I was too busy snapping up some of her ah-may-zing buys!

I mean, really, who can't use a twenty dollar mushroom knife? Can you say stocking stuffer? Just last week, my husband was complaining that we didn't have a knife suitable for cutting mushrooms. Every knife I handed him just simply would not do. "No, Jen! This is clearly for tomatoes. This one is for carrots. Good grief, stop handing me a bread knife when I am trying to cut mushrooms, woman! What is wrong with you?" He finally begrudgingly used a paring knife to get the mushroom situation under control when he started lamenting over our lack of a decent sea salt. I'd recently purchased a lovely one pound bag for under three bucks that was hand-harvested from the most pristine shores of France. I thought that would suffice. Boy, was I wrong. Good thing Gwynnie let me in on the secret eighteen dollar bag farmed from Maine. Message received: buy American, Jen!


I'm seeing a trend here now. Buy local, but travel abroad. Why else would Gwyneth's list need passport covers, toiletry kits, carry on bags, and travel adapters? How about a $285 currency case? Too plebeian to know what a currency case is? It's a special purse you travel with, peasant. You put your dirty American dollars in one compartment and your fancy Euros in another. That way your money won't mingle and touch one another. Because, ewwww.

I didn't realize people still carried cash when they traveled. Doesn't everyone just put the trip on the AmEx and then pay it off for the next ten years or is that just my family?

Gwyneth also doesn't want you to stop doing yoga. Ever. Not even on vacation. That's why there is a forty dollar travel yoga mat. The price didn't bother me so much as the size. I can only afford to check one bag and the hell I'm taking up my blow dryer's space with a yoga mat. Call me spoiled, but I just can not use the blow dryers in the hotel. They don't have enough juice to tame my mane. Maybe Goop should find a good travel blow dryer for next year's list.

Many, many, many moons ago when the Hubs and I were newlyweds, my parents decided to take us and my brother, C.B. and his wife, Ida, to Germany for Christmas. It was the coldest I've ever been and I've been to Russia in the winter. It was nuts. We'd venture out into the city and practically freeze to death and then we'd seek warmth and shelter and hot tea in the hotel. Someone had thought to bring a deck of cards and we'd play cards a lot at night when we couldn't sleep and it was too cold to venture out anymore. I'm suspecting that Gwyneth has been in this same situation and that's why she suggested a $550 travel backgammon set. Sure, a free deck of cards from the airlines (remember when they used to do that??) worked just fine, but imagine how much more fun we could have had if we'd had a $550 travel backgammon set. (Editor's note: Do NOT confuse this set with the $120 backgammon set that is also on the list. That one is obviously not for travel and should only be played at home.)

Goop has a real bag obsession. Get in line, Goop. I do too. I can't pass a Coach outlet store without popping in to see what they have on sale. I lost count, but I think Goop has nine bags on their list this year. I can't ask the Hubs to buy them all for me, that means I have to choose my favorite. It wasn't hard at all. In fact, it was a no-brainer. I've been really trying to go green this year. I've invested in some good reusable shopping bags and I try to carry them in my car at all times, so I can publicly shun the woman in front of me bagging up her purchases in plastic. "Ohhhh, you didn't bring your reusable bags? That's a shame. I guess you hate your children and want to leave a wasteland of plastic for their future." I haven't been able to get just the right condescending tone with my bags from Sam's or Costco or free ones I've received from the library. Goop to the rescue! They have what they call a Shopper Bag that costs $1,395. They recommend the white one. Of course. That makes sense. I will only cry a little bit when my chocolate ice cream melts a little or my blueberries escape their clam shell and squish all over my bag.

We don't do much juicing around our house, but the Goop list got me thinking. I've read that juicing is great for your health and I could stand to be healthier. I just want to make sure that I'm picking the very best for my family. Luckily, Gwyneth was there with some solid gold advice: buy the Easy Health Angel Juicer, Gold for only $4,739. The caption they wrote said it all "Absurd, but awesome." Oh, Gwynnie, you are soooo adorable!

And let's not forget the kids! Goop has come up with some suggestions for those hard to buy for tweens and teens in your house: a 19 dollar accordion.

Stop it, Goop.

I was all on board for your forty seven hundred dollar juicer and your five hundred dollar backgammon set. I even turned a blind eye when you suggested and $54 sequined hot pants for my teenage daughter. But now you've lost me.

An accordion? Are you kidding me? I have a 10-year-old taking violin this year and every practice session is like a thousand cats being murdered. You want me to add the not so dulcet sounds of an accordion to that too? Have you lost your collective mind over there? No one wants to listen to someone play the accordion.

I had suspected it, but now this just proves that you're out of touch with reality. Ms. Paltrow, if you pull another stunt like the one with the accordion, I will be forced to call your gift guide ridiculous gifts for ridiculous people.

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3 comments:

mspice3 said...

She is so pretentious I just can't...

Csnee317 said...

Seeing as she is the prize who came up with "conscious uncoupling" I'm not surprised there is a $4,700 juicer on her list.

Ali Arnone said...

Just discovered this blog andddddd you are my new favorite person.

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