Black Friday, White Christmas
By Kirkner/Lunch
Minky Monkey celebrates its second anniversary this holiday season and the sales start Friday, Nov. 26. Owner Kim Harris said she’ll feature a variety of sale items this Friday, particularly Legos. This weekend is also marked by Small Business Saturday, a nationwide event that supports small businesses.
“If you’ve signed up, then for every $25 you spend on your American Express card this Saturday, you’ll get $25 back,” Harris said. Minky Monkey is an official vendor so get your Christmas shopping done now and save.
“We cater to infants, all the way up to 10- and 11-year-olds,” Harris said, “and we have a lot of new inventory.”
This year the items on every kid’s wish list include Legos and Lego games, Harris said. The Lego games are a new twist on an old favorite and combine a board-game type atmosphere with traditional Legos.
Also on the list for Santa, according to Harris, are pillow pets: soft, cuddly pillows in the shape of your favorite animal, so if you don’t want the mess of a real dog, buy your little someone a pillow pet dog.
Harris also recommended the original Silly Bandz as perfect stocking stuffers. Silly Bandz are rubber bands in shapes of things such as dinosaurs. Kids collect them and wear them on their wrists like bracelets, and they can trade them with their friends. Silly Bandz stretch out into a bracelet when they are on your wrist but revert back to their original shape once you take them off again.
Last but not least, and not an item that Harris recommended but one that The Sheet spotted while in the store, is the Pee-Pee Teepee, a great gift for the new mother blessed with a little boy. The Pee-Pee Teepee is used during diaper changes. It covers your little man’s nether regions so when the cold air hits his private parts it doesn’t cause him to pee straight into the air and get everything around him wet. Use the Pee-Pee Teepee to keep life high and dry.
Harris is very thankful this Thanksgiving for all of the community support over the past two years.
“A lot of people will shop local and pay more to support our business,” she explained. In fact, the Mammoth Hospital medical imaging group recently made a trip to the store to shop for kids whose families are not fortunate enough to do their own shopping for the holidays.
“They came in and supported us while supporting a great cause,” Harris explained.
Minky Monkey is located on Old Mammoth Road, next to the Police Station.
Meanwhile, The Booky Joint, owned by Dave Leonard, has its usual assortment of Melissa and Doug toys. Lunch promises that you can’t go wrong with the Fold and Go Castle, and the food-cutting sets, priced at about $20, are always popular.
All Melissa and Doug items will be 20% off this weekend.
Then, during the first week of December, the Booky Joint will have a “20% off everything you can fit in a canvas bag” sale.
Other items for kids include sticker books (a never fail according to Lunch) and role-play sets which allow your child to be a police officer, a knight, a vet or a hair stylist.
The Booky Joint also has a large variety of art stuff, doodle books, activity sets, etc.
For families with older children, there is an ample supply of puzzles (including a few 4,000-piece puzzles which look impossible), trivia games, board games, poker chips and a Lunch family favorite, dominos. Mexican Train is the game to play – make sure to buy the one with the train included.
For books, the much-anticipated Mark Twain autobiography has finally made it to the shelves. Twain mandated that his autobiography not be released until 100 years following his death. Part one has just been published, and as Leonard says, “It’s the size of a small dog.” Price: $34.95 (not bad for a small dog. No shots necessary. And the Booky Joint automatically takes 10% off hardcovers).
Other popular titles include “The People of Walmart: Shop and Awe,” and the big coffeetable book celebrating National Lampoon artists and writers entitled “Drunk, Stoned, Brilliant, Dead.”
Speaking of drunk, stoned and brilliant, Keith Richards’ autobiography just came out, too.
Leonard has autographed copies of local favorites “Tracks of Passion” and “The Laws Field Guide” on hand.
He also has a wide selection of cards and calendars. His most popular are Dennis Flaherty’s calendar of the Eastern Sierra and the “Who Farted?” calendar – a new fart sound for every month!
Enjoy. Shop local!
