2020 has brought us a very unique year, if you can even call it that. We’ve seen events that will define the decade: a global pandemic, unprecedented participation in protests for racial equality, the weirdest, neverending presidential election; and things that confound and mystify: the Utah desert monolith (now Romania? ?), Ratatouille the TikiTok musical, Four Seasons Total Landscaping…
But here we are in December, though it is also somehow still March. And Abbey’s Favorite Things is back for a very 2020 twenty. My focus will be on small businesses, with an extra shoutout to the things that got me through 2020. The pandemic has impacted the employees and owners of small businesses in absurd ways. Creativity and character provided by small businesses define our neighborhoods, and without them every place would be boring and the same. This is the time (right now) to step up for small businesses: order food, buy a tote bag, like and share posts on social media, write reviews, purchase your holiday gifts. December 21 may be too late.
I independently chose twenty things to write about. I don’t have sponsors or incentives or discounts—I truly and genuinely love these things and think you may too!
If you want to know how people were matched with their item:
After soliciting participation on my Instagram story, twenty of my friends will receive one of the daily featured items. Chosen participants filled out a small four question survey about allergies, ear holes, and beverage consumption, which populated a Google spreadsheet. Randomly distributed (by the randomize range function) numbers 1 through 20 were added to the last column, which indicate what gift they will receive. If the gift choice conflicted with the survey questions, the number was bumped down one row (this happened twice). Some of the matches I could not have better paired myself, and others are a bit of a stretch, but that’s life in the free things lane.
