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Here's a little game I like to play around the holidays with the hardest-to-buy-for humans on my shopping list. I think about the characters these people I love are most like — be it in their personality, lifestyle, or overall level of ridiculousness. Then, I consider what I would get for those characters, as if they were real and not just friends who live in my TV. Presto change-o: I become the present master. And everyone lives happily ever after.
Okay, okay. It doesn't always work perfectly. For example: You can't buy your NYC friend who lives in a teeny-tiny apartment a £1,000 karaoke machine just because his singing voice has a Titus Andronicus tonality to it. His roommates will hate it. Also, if you are like me, you don't have £1,000 to blow on a karaoke machine.
But this strategy does make thinking up presents more fun. It's also how my sister wound up with a boob-shaped one-hitter last year: I never would have arrived at that gift without thinking about all the ways in which she is the Ilana Wexler to my Abbi Abrams. So thank you, Broad City, for the inspiration. Now, on to the 2016 present picks.
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