The daily digest of Twin Cities culture | Secrets of the City

Of course, this will be a personal list. If you have a hankering to mention a particularly tasteful or -less gift of your own, please comment below.

WORST

1. Body Fat Scale (from one fat ass to another?) On Christmas evening, after I'd had my fill of sugar cookies, at the most inopportune moment, I opened a body-fat scale marked "From Santa." Quickly programming the thing with my height (5' 5.5") and gender, I hopped aboard and was horrified to read its measure: thirty-seven-percent fat. However, if I program myself as an "athletic woman," it puts me at only twenty-four. And when I weighed-in as a man? Ten. And if you sleep it off and try for better the next morning? Eighteen. Needless to say, I can't stand the fucking thing.

2. Portraits. Is it really appropriate to give framed portraits of your lovely children to the single, childless aunt who once walked away from an engagement to a hot, wonderful man (thus causing suspicions about her sexual preferences) and who, furthermore, lives in a 600-square-foot box? I don't have room for that shit ... in my apartment or in my frozen-over heart.

BEST

1. In Vogue. A coffee-table book providing a comprehensive history of Vogue magazine, with plenty of images, beginning with the illustrated covers of the 1890s through the '40s and moving into the magazine's heyday, from about 1950 through the mid '80s.

2. 20 Questions Game. This handheld, battery-operated doodad asks you to think of an object and then, after asking twenty questions, guesses what it is - and with amazing accuracy. I've found it to be a colossal, but nonetheless delightful, waste of time. Already, I've identified its weak points: food things and anything feminine other than bra and panties.