Days! Months! If there's anything you can count on, it's time going by, at least until the universe collapses upon itself and crushes us all like ants. Until that time, calendars will make great gifts.
Every year, it gets easier to find a calendar that fits that impossible-to-buy-for person perfectly, and as the malls open stores to sell just calendars, there's simply no excuse for not finding the one you want. Here are a few you might want to look for (or avoid) out of the countless time-trackers for 1997:
Christmas countdowns
Who would think that a calendar for only one month out of the year would have so much appeal? And yet these calendars are in some ways the most clever. A wonderful example is "A Victorian Christmas," which, with the pull of a tab, folds out into a three-dimensional pop-up village with little windows that open to count down each day until Christmas. Very cool.
"Mary Engelbreit's Countdown to Christmas Calendar" is also three-dimensional, but not nearly so elaborate, and its doors reveal cute pictures. Then there's "The Christmas Box Holiday Countdown Calendar" (from the best-selling book), a stand-up house that tells a story as you open each window or door. "A Host of Angels," meanwhile, lets you pull out cardboard angels made of heavy stock and hang them on your tree; a golden angel hides behind the last "door." (All four are from Andrews and McMeel, $14.95 each.)
Funny stuff
Every cartoon character known to humanity must have a calendar, or ambitions for one. Thank goodness Scott Adams' Dilbert is back in the perfect companion for the office, "I Admire Your
Ability to Get Paid for This," a day-by-day calendar (Andrews and McMeel, $9.95).
Other daily offerings include the new "Snaps 1997 Calendar," a year's worth of such insults as, "Your girlfriend is so ugly, her doctor is a vet," and "That's Funny!" which prints the best from stand-up comics (both Andrews and McMeel, $9.95 each). A calendar kids may appreciate is "365 Jokes! Puns and Riddles 1997 Calendar" (Workman, $8.95), which is full of mild funnies and groaners.
For your wall, here are a couple of monthly calendars (from Andrews and McMeel): "Deep Thoughts by Jack Handey" ($9.95), the perfect thing to make people look twice, combines lovely photographs with such tongue-in-cheek philosophies as: "If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason." Also check out the mischievous "Lady Cottington's Pressed Fairy Calendar," from the similarly named book, in which a fictional Victorian lady smashes fairies in a scrapbook. It's beautiful, humorous and sick at the same time.
