A few decades ago I met my husband in a bookstore where he picked me up by convincing me to go to his dorm room to lend me the books I was looking at so I didn’t have to buy them.
Over a decade ago I started writing strange books about our lives that somehow became bestsellers.
5 years ago we opened a sweet indie bookstore called Nowhere Bookshop. Victor and I considered adding our footprints in front of the witchy section because that’s where our story started, but we didn’t because we move the shelves too much. But they are there in spirit.
5 years ago Vicky became one of our very first Nowhere team members, and is now our amazing events coordinator. And then later Emily joined Nowhere and eventually became our fantastic bar manager. And sometime after meeting at Nowhere, they fell in love.
This week we closed the store a little early so that Vicky and Emily could get married right here at Nowhere, in front of friends and family (and a gorgeous backdrop they made out of wooden pallets, books and fairy lights).
These are the stories I hold close to my heart as we move into a new year.
Sending love to the happy couple and to everyone reading this.
First off, I just went through and counted and it looks like 432 kids were gifted with new stuffed animals this week during the 15th Annual James Garfield Miracle. Holy crap. I love you guys.
Secondly, I wrote this for my substack today but I’m sharing it here too in case you don’t substack but need to read it:
I was supposed to write this yesterday but I couldn’t because I’ve been fighting a massive depression and so yesterday I had an emergency ketamine treatment to try to pull me out of it. And today I woke up with less of a gravity-has-tripled-but-only-for-me-apparently depression and more of a day-2-of-the-flu-and-I-think-I’m-getting-better-but-not-entirely-human depression. Yay!
Today’s doodle is all about Iceland because did you know that in Iceland they have a tradition called Jólabókaflóðið, which means “Christmas Book Flood”? Basically on Christmas Eve it’s tradition to exchange books and spend Christmas Eve reading. YES, PLEASE, NOW. Another Icelandic tradition you need to know about? The Yule Cat, a huge, grumpy cat who lurks in the snowy countryside and eats people who don’t wear new clothes on Xmas Eve.
This seems ridiculous because why would cats care about clothes, but then I remembered that there is nothing my cats love more than laying across me when I’m wearing something that doesn’t already have cat fur and claw snags so maybe there’s some truth to that. Regardless, I don’t have any new clothes, nor did I buy any for Hailey and Victor, so tonight I will make us all wear towels as Christmas capes to keep us safe:
I didn’t have the energy to put up a tree or wrap presents or make food, but tonight we’ll be together, in Christmas capes, as I read on the couch and it might not look like Christmas to anyone else but that doesn’t make it any less special.
So here’s to you, no matter what your holiday looks like. The world is better with you in it.
I super crazy love you,
Jenny
PS. Yesterday on threads I asked for pet pictures and literally thousands of people obliged and so if you’re feeling low I highly suggest going through this thread and sending psychic scritches to all these lovely faces because it will make you smile in spite of yourself.
Hello and welcome to the FIFTEENTH ANNUAL James Garfield Miracle! (HOW??)
“What is the James Garfield Miracle?” you may be asking.
You must be new here. HELLO AND WELCOME.
15 years ago I walked into an estate sale and fell in love with an ancient taxidermied boars head that seemed so damn happy to see me.
I did not buy him and spent a week in light mourning. Then the next week A MIRACLE HAPPENED and James Garfield came into my life forever. (He’s looking at me right now, in fact and he is still magnificent.)
But Victor wasn’t completely thrilled that we’d spent $90 on a literal Christmas miracle of mangey fur and missing teeth so I decided that I’d make holiday cards of James Garfieldto make up for it and if I sold a couple dozen it’d be like James Garfield was making us money.
But then everyone went crazy and James Garfield made more that week than I did in my actual job and so I decided that I’d take all the money James Garfield made and use it to give presents to the kids of people who were struggling that year because I have been there in the past myself. And I bought gifts for the first 30 something people and then I ran out of money but then suddenly everyone in the comments were like, “I WANT TO HELP A STRANGER IN NEED! LET ME BUY A GIFT FOR SOMEONE” and that’s how this suddenly became 15 years of a strange community project of strangers helping strangers anonymously and it’s pretty damn amazing.
Over the years we’ve had many different iterations of the James Garfield Miracle and the only real downside is that occassionally a scammer would slip in and ask for stuff for themselves, so a few years ago we decided to just give out teddy bears. Why? Because everyone loves teddy bears (hell, I love teddy bears) and if someone is going to go to the trouble to make an entire wishlist account for a teddy bear they definitely need one.
So this year I am sending out 100+ teddy bears to kids right here.
That’s it. Just sweet, snuggly teddy bears. Well, not just teddy bears because the teddy bears have eyes that babies can swallow (stop swallowing eyes, weird babies) so I’m also adding a few other stuffed animals you can choose from if you have an eye-devouring baby or your child hates bears or Amazon sells out of teddy bears.
But that’s it. Simple. Easy. Not perfect because in a perfect world everyone would get everything they need, but I’d like to imagine that even people who may be disappointed that we’re just doing stuffed animals will at least be happy imagining all the kids finding unexpected fluffy new stuffed animals in their arms this holiday. It makes me smile, at least.
So, if you are struggling this year and you need help getting your child a present for Christmas/Hanukkah/winter solstice/whateveryoucelebrate then I am ready to Santa Claus it up and drop one lovely plushie at your doorstep. And I will walk you through how to get one anonymously.
Here are the links for the plushes you can pick from. Hailey picked them out because they are still kid-adjacent and knows what kids like. Choose the one that best works for your kid:
Currently these are all around $10-$20 each but Amazon can be wonky about changing up the prices when things start to run low so if I see that happening I’ll come back here to add other choices to choose from to replace any that sell out or suddenly skyrocket in price from $20 to $180. (Wtf, Amazon?) If I haven’t bought you a stuffy it’s probably because they sold out, jacked up the price, or you forgot to add your address so just come back and try again.
(Also, I use a lot of the profits I make on ads and stuff to buy toys for kids, and all of the royalties from the 2025 Bloggess Calendar go to this as well, so that means that if you’ve even clicked on a link this year or bought an ad or a book, then you are the reason why I’m going to be able to buy toys for at least 100 kids this year. I’m so grateful. Thank you!)
The wishlists should be posted in the comments so (as always) if you want to buy a present for a stranger you totally can. Or you can donate to Project Night Night, an amazing organization that provides a tote bag, book, stuffed animal and security blanket to displaced kids throughout the year. They are FANTASTIC and they have more requests than they can fill so I cannot recommend them enough. In fact, this afternoon I donated $1000 to them in your name. WHOOP!
SO…if you want in on this you have to read all the directions and stick to the rules or otherwise you will be set on fire and pushed out a moving plane. Or maybe I’ll just delete your comment and look at you with that disappointed look your mom gives you when she knows you’re trying but are still fucking up. One of those. Here are the rules:
IF YOU WANT TO GIVE:
Okay, how do I do this?
You are my special angel. Just look in the comments and find someone who has an unfilled Wishlist. I’m going to fill least 150 stuffed animal wishes but there are always more than I can handle. (If there’s nothing on their list when you click it it means their toy was already bought- yay!) Buy their present and make sure when you check out that you select their shipping address instead of defaulting to yours. (It won’t give you their full address but it’ll tell you the town you’re shipping it to so you can compare it to their comment to make sure you have the right person.) If you try to fill a wishlist but it doesn’t give you a shipping address to choose that means the person didn’t assign a shipping address to their list so just delete their present out of your cart and go on to the next wishlist. If it says “these are duplicates. Someone else may have already bought this” when you try to check out then someone else has already bought that stuff so delete it and try another one. I’ll update the comments as I can to note which ones have been filled but it can get a bit backlogged when I’m in the car or sleeping. 🙂 Please do not fill any wishlists that don’t say the city the person lives in the comments, or any wishlists where the person doesn’t stick to the rules, please. (This is one way we make sure that people are who they say they are while still giving them anonymity.)
But what if I don’t live in America?
Check the comments because we often have Canadians and others outside the US who need help and I can’t fill those lists because shipping kills me, so if you want to adopt a family this is a great way to do it.
IF YOU NEED HELP:
You are my special angel. Here are the things you have to know and if you do them wrong you’ll get deleted so read carefully, okay?: You have to make a BRAND NEW wishlist today, you can only choose one stuffed animal per child to put on your wishlist, and it has to be one of the ones above. I’ll walk you through it below. Then just come to this post and leave a comment telling us the city and State you’re in (this location has to match what you have on your wishlist), how many kids you have, and a link to your wishlist. Do not make multiple wish lists. Just make one. One of the most important things (people do this wrong every year so PLEASE do this part right) is that you have to assign a shipping address for this specific brand new wishlist. It doesn’t matter if you’ve done it before or think it’s on your profile. You have to do it for this new wishlist specifically today or it won’t work. I’ll give you the details on setting up the wishlist below.
What if I want to make wish lists to surprise other people who I think need help?
Nope. Because then we end up sending multiple things to the same people. But you can totally encourage them to go online and make their own. This is for anyone struggling to get a toy for their child this holiday (and yes, that totally includes teens and adult children with special needs).
I’ve never done this before. How do I make a wishlist?
On Amazon, click on “Accounts & Lists” (on the top right), choose “lists” and then on “Create a list”.
Name it “James Garfield 2024” then click “create”. This will give you a blank private wishlist with nothing on it.
On the right you’ll see something that says “…More“. Click on that and choose “Manage list.” Change “private” to “PUBLIC” so we can see it. In the “description” part just put how many kids your list is for. YOU MUST ADD YOUR ADDRESS FOR THIS SPECIFIC LISTso click on the drop-down for the shipping address and change it from “none” to your address. PLEASE DON’T SKIP THIS PART. Please make sure that the checkboxes “keep purchased items on your list” and “don’t spoil my surprises” are NOT checked. Now go back and double-check every single thing in this paragraph. Is it all good? Awesome! Click “Save changes”.
Now just go pick one of the above stuffed lovies for your kiddo. When you have the one you want click on the “Add to list” drop down arrow on the right (it’s under where the price is) and then select your “James Garfield 2024” list. Click “view your list” to make sure it’s added. If everything is right you should have your stuffed animal(s) on the wishlist page and when you click on the “…more” button it should say that your wishlist is public and your address should show up in the “…more” box and double check that “don’t spoil my surprises” and “keep purchased items on your list” ARENOT checked. (People will see the city and state you are in, but your last name and the rest of your address is hidden.)
If you have another kid just go back to the list and pick a present for them and add it to the same list.
Copy the link to your wishlist. Now you go to the comments below and leave a comment saying how many kids you have, what city and state you are in, and a paste in the link to your wishlist. That’s it!
PS. Please please please double check before you hit the submit button that you have assigned a shipping address to your wishlist, that it’s “public” and that your comment has a link to your wishlist, the city and state you live it and the number of kids you have. Love!
PPS. This is one of my favorite things to do each year but it isn’t perfect. Every year some boxes go missing. Some get delivered after Christmas. Miscommunications happen. But I’d rather try to do something small and wonderful even if it isn’t perfect. Thank you to every single person who asks for help, to every single person to who helps and especially to those who have done both. Every year we have people who’ve been helped before who are so happy to help this year, or people who’ve helped before but now need help themselves. I know what it feels like to be in both of those places and I’m wishing love and light to every single person who reads this.
PPPS. When you choose something for your wishlist make sure it still says “delivers before xmas” because some of the things may sell out and not restock in time. 🙂 As of the time I’m writing this all the stuffed animals arrive before xmas but if they start to sell out and have to restock it might cause your stuff to come in later.
I used to share instagram videos on Fridays but I stopped because I’d heard they wouldn’t embed anymore so I thought I’d try again now to see if it works again. Let me know in the comments?
This month’s book picks are weirdly related because both feature queer romance and suspenseful corpse disposal and I promise I didn’t plan that at all.
If you’re in Nightmares from Nowhere you’ll be getting The Resurrectionist by A. Rae Dunlap. It’s a dark and twisty gothic debut set in 19th century Scotland (at a time when real-life serial killers Burke and Hare terrorized the streets of Edinburgh) as a young medical student is lured into the illicit underworld of body snatching.
And if you’re in The Fantastic Strangelings you’ll be getting I MIGHT BE IN TROUBLE by Daniel Aleman, a suspenseful dark comedy about a struggling writer who wakes up to find his date from the night before dead—and must then decide how far he’s willing to go to spin the misadventure into his next book.
And if you haven’t joined any of our clubs this is sort of the perfect time to try them out because a membership is a great gift and if you want you can just do three months to try it out and see if it’s fun for you. Just click here for details or send this link to someone if you want to hint at a very easy present. (We also have an amazing romance book club and a great picture book club for kids but I never write about them here because I only pick the books for Nightmares and FS because those are the genres I love most.)
Need more than one book to get you through the month? Here are a few December new releases I really liked: The Mistletoe Mystery by Nita Prose~ Remember when we read The Maid? Well this is a sweet new novella with Molly the Maid solving a whole new mystery.
Sister Snake by Amanda Lee Koe – A glittering, bold, darkly funny novel about two sisters—one in New York, one in Singapore—who are bound by an ancient secret.
Rental House by Weike Wang – From the award-winning author of Chemistry, a sharp-witted, insightful novel about a marriage as seen through the lens of two family vacations
And then Ruth sat beside me through good times and bad and waved at fascinated neighborhood children during the pandemic.
But now Hailey is off in college and this house feels too big and so I’m looking at downsizing so that maybe we could move to a smaller place and so I asked my dad if he knew anyone that could give Ruth a home and he was like, “I’LL TAKE HER” and my mother was like, “Henry. We do not have room for another bear” and he explained that he could fix all her broken parts at his taxidermy shop and then put her in the old-west saloon/courthouse that they built by hand during the pandemic and I think this explains a lot about my family.
So then my dad picked Ruth up in a bear-hug and waltzed her outside…
…past Bone Crawford, the 12-foot-skeleton that I’ve been meaning to take down for years but now has become a permanent fixture.
And then he propped Ruth on a post while he went to get his pick-up, right as the neighbors drove by slowly, shaking their heads as they watched a bear dressed in a judge’s gown cling drunkenly to a pole like it was Mardi Gras for bears.
“Ah, Jesus. They’re at it again, Bernice.” ~ my neighbors, probably.
And then my parents drove away, with only Ruth’s boots sticking up over the bed of their truck, making it look to everyone they passed on the highway as if they were transporting the very stiff corpse of a cowboy with extremely hairy legs.
The Mack Files: Digesting life in bite-sized pieces through the lens of clichés, quotes & “truisms”. Often irreverent, always honest.
Barking at the Moon: If your dog is your furry child, you will laugh out loud at Tracy Beckerman’s book about her family & a one-dog wrecking ball named Riley.
Wonder and Joy for the Wired and Tired: Feeling wired, tired, and stretched too thin? You’re not alone. Re-ignite your sense of childlike wonder, joy, and well-being with this enlightening and entertaining book by Dr. Pam Stephens Lehenbauer, well-being thought leader and author of the blog, Mother Nature’s Apprentice.
Stuff and Thangs from Xanaru: A mostly funny stuff about my quest for happiness through stories, art, friendship, Great Danes, one naked weirdo alien cat and indiscriminate swearing.
How the Hell Did I Not Know That?: Humorist Lucie Frost shares daily Instagram reels with learnings of the day—words, music, whatever–with plenty of laughs and all the curse words.
Beautiful Writers book: Writers! This coming-of-career memoir (w/ the BEST advice from celeb authors, real shit you haven’t heard) is life. A page-turning beach read doubling as how-to. #Magic
