On thieves of joy...and, yes, gifts you can still get in time for Christmas.

You’re reading This Heaven Gives Me Migraine, a shopping newsletter about searching for lasting pleasures in a world of disposable garbage. In the coming weeks, the Life Improvers 2025 list will be coming out—if you missed it last year, you can catch up here. Stay tuned for that list and many more life-improving things in the new year.

This edition is a little unusual in terms of format, but if you're short on time and want to skip to the gift recs with overnight shipping (some cut off at NOON EST, so I understand), you can scroll down. I won't be offended. Thanks for reading.

I've been hideously sick for about three of the last four weeks (two separate bouts of debilitating illness!), which thoroughly upended my best-laid plans to send you all a barrage of themed gift guides like I did last year. This is a bummer for many reasons. But I recently read Angela Scanlon's excellent piece about how to find the childlike wonder of the holidays when you're an adult, and it reminded me of the biggest thing I learned this year, which is this:

Don't let perfect be the enemy of good. Or rather: Don't fact-check your happiness.

Comparison, they say, is the thief of joy—but so is anxiety, and perfectionism, and half a dozen other things that live in my brain (and probably, but hopefully not, yours too). My small personal revelation is this: let yourself accept a random moment of happiness. Let yourself have it even if the laundry has been in the dryer for a week. Let yourself have it even if the star on the Christmas tree is wonky as fuck even though you've fixed it nine times already. And if those sound like very trivial problems, because they are, then let me also say that this holds true on scales of magnitude too. Let yourself feel happy even if you don't know what you're doing with your life. If you've been passed over for a job. If you've been dumped. If you've gained twenty pounds. The point is, if you have even a slight inclination toward a good feeling, let yourself have it, without footnote or asterisk. On a Tuesday when you have work due; at midnight when you have to get up early the next morning; on Sunday when you've burned the dinner but the light is glinting off your neighbor's yard in a nice way and you notice a stray cat lounging in the sun flicking its tail. If your fleeting moment of happiness doesn't stand up to interrogation, then here's a tip: don't interrogate it.

Life's too short. And, as it turns out, it doesn't require your perfection for payment for living on this earth. Hell, it doesn't even ask for it. You built that toll booth all by yourself.

But before I break into a Mary Oliver-esque song...I know you're not here for meditations on joy and self-acceptance. You're here to find out who's still offering overnight shipping. Listen, we can do both. We contain multitudes. So let's go.

An eclectic list of five gift ideas that you can still manage in time for Christmas:

1) Interesting key blanks (from $14, YMMV)

For an auspicious cool-factor-to-price ratio, you can't do better than interesting key blanks. When I bought my house, I immediately got the Moon Key from Good Worth Co. to commemorate the occasion, and it now opens every door in the house. I have been delighted ever since, not only because of its witchy celestial motif but the fact that the large amount of negative space makes it easy to find on my chronically overloaded keyring.

Now, you won't be able to get key blanks from Good Worth (or elsewhere) shipped to you in time, but that doesn't really matter because there's a good chance your city has a funky esoteric locksmith who will sell you some IRL. In New York, that place is Greenwich Locksmiths, which offers elaborate and fanciful "castle keys" among their stock. (Personally, I'm also partial to their NYC Subway Token key blank—perhaps because MetroCard nostalgia has me yearning for even more outdated modes of public transit fare.) If you're in St. Louis, I'm happy to report that Clement's Lock & Security has some unusual patterned & oversized key blanks here in town.

Hopefully you're able to stumble upon a good local supplier (#shoplocal), or maybe you're not as concerned with your gift arriving before Christmas and can order something from Good Worth's selection. Here's why I like these as a gift: This is the rare item that's both fully of novelty and unlikely to ever get thrown away. You can pre-cut the key if you're making a big gesture (asking them to move in with you?), or just give them the plain blank if you're on less-intimate terms (maybe a "Work's For Jerks" bottle opener key for your office bestie who wants to stick it to the man). Based on your level of planning and emotional commitment, this can either be a fun stocking stuffer/White Elephant gift, or, y'know, Kind Of A Big Deal. We like to call that "range."

2) Gardenheir Floral Scented Pencils, $19

I've long said: if you can't gift something that lasts forever, then gift something that disappears. These pencils are a far cry from those cloying cupcake scented ones you may remember from youth, that left the contents of your backpack tinged with indelible, artificial, not-entirely-pleasant notes of sugar and plastic. These are much more refined: the cedarwood pencils themselves have a nice woodsy scent, to which thoughtful notes like fig tree (a perennial crowd-pleaser) and rose geranium are added. The overall result is subtle but highly pleasing. For the fraghead who isn't allowed to burn candles in her cubicle, or the modern romantic who believes in writing Thank You notes from her dressing table, these are a perfect stocking stuffer. Honestly, I would keep a few packs on hand for tying atop more substantial gifts through the year.

Gardenheir offers Next Day Air shipping until 1pm (EST) today, so you can get these even if you're not nearby their Wyndham, NY store. (If you're springing for Next Day shipping, I recommend stocking up on more than just pencils, obviously: their British Twine in a bevy of colors pleases me immensely, as does their great range of Santa Maria Novella goodies if you're doubling down on good smells. (Formerly mentioned in this very newsletter!)

3) Engineered Garments x Sabahs Special Edition Studded Sabahs, $270

I promise I'm not just rehashing things I've already talked about: this is totally different because this is about a collab. And the Engineered Garments collab with Sabahs is just obscenely good. They're inspired by classic English brogues, but finished with studs, and of course have the classic beloved Sabah shape. They come in both Men's and Women's sizing (consult their particular size chart, and/or reach out to them directly for help—the sizing can be a skosh particular), and if my size hadn't sold out IMMEDIATELY you'd best believe I would currently be wearing these. They are marvelous. The fashion plate on your list, male or female, will cherish them. And they're wildly comfy, too. Sabah offers Next Day Air shipping if you order by 2PM EST today, which means they give you a full hour of indecision more than Gardenheir does!

4) Knife sharpening (from $7, YMMV)

Someone on TikTok said it, and it's true—if you're shopping for someone who cooks a lot, there's an overwhelming likelihood they need their knives sharpened. Just...get it done for them. Or buy them a gift card to your local sharpening shop, if you have one. Don't know where to go? Check your city's Reddit. (If you're in St. Louis, this thread has a variety of local recommendations.)

Second-best option: Ruth Reichl recommended the new Made In olivewood handle bread knife (pictured above), and I trust her the most. Remarkably, Made In is offering $20 overnight shipping (?!) if you order by NOON EST today. Obviously they are subsidizing that price, but you're really not gonna get a better last-minute offer than that.

Other notable knives: I bought this Henckles chef's knife in 2019 in advance of the first Thanksgiving I ever hosted, and I've been using it to slice literally every single thing I've sliced in the time since then. It is a truly excellent all-purpose knife (A German knife, Charlie—no American knives for us) and it's 20% off. Amazon, while I'm loathe to direct you there, will indeed get your order to you by tomorrow. Plus, you and your loved ones can reenact the scene in Scrooged where Bill Murray's character gives his girlfriend knives for Christmas. If that's something you want to do.

5) NOLTY Japanese Five-Year Journal ($42)

Let me be the first to say: a journal is not a great gift, unless you know someone is really into journaling or you've put a lot of effort into customizing it. HOWEVER. A five-year journal IS a great gift. A five-year journal is a personal enrichment project that doesn't feel like homework, because you can literally only write about one sentiment per day for the amount of lines they allot you. It's one of those daily tasks that is more work to avoid it than it is to actually do it. And as someone who has kept a five-year journal for some time but has only recently gotten dedicated about writing in it every. single. day., it's a fascinating endeavor. Humans are notoriously bad at both recognizing their own personal patterns and, just as crucially, understanding their capacity for change. A five-year journal addresses both problems. You can see what you felt last year on this same date at a glance, which is great for people who, say, absolutely fucking hate summer and get maudlin and depressed in mid-July every damn year but have never noticed it. Just to use a random example.

So really, you're giving someone the gift of self-awareness and growth. Try getting that delivered with overnight shipping. (You can—Amazon again.)

Thanks for reading. Merry Christmas to all (and most especially our postal workers who are diligently hustling to get all these things to their destinations on time). I hope you all find some childlike wonder this week and let it sneak up on you the rest of the year, too. See you soon.