What do you want for Xmas?

just in time for the holidays 

The top 10 gifts to get a surfer are...

(drum roll please)

Well to begin with you don't need ten new things

(maybe knowing that is the biggest gift in itself)

Surfing is an experience maybe a lifestyle but not a product

(you can't buy a set wave from The Queen)

I suppose there is some stuff required

(I ALWAYS get email from naked body surfers who will argue the point and then send pictures)

but we tend to get more and more and more stuff, 

(especially here in the land of plenty)

some of the stuff never get used, a waste of the materials and energy that went into the manufacturing process and  lots of this stuff ends up in a landfill. 

(I'm not  buying that's a thoughtful gift for your great, great, great, great, great grandchildren who might be cultural anthropologists)

So what do you need?

(do peaks come in a ten pack with a side of off shore winds?)

More importantly during the gift giving season, what do you need that someone can buy you?

Grandma is more likely to pick up the pop out from the offshore sweatshop than the custom board from your local shaper.

(It had all those pretty plastic flowers and it came with matching shirt and trunks dearie)

(If grandma is jiggy with it and knows your local shaper (happy birthday wishes go out to Gary Hanel BTW) then goody for you and your obviously outstanding genetic lineage. Grandma may have even gotten handplanes for all the grand kids this year.)

Ok so where does that leave us?

Wax

(wax on wax off)

I had a standing order for surf wax for all gift giving occasions for years

(If you see me at the beach, ask me, I have some)

(hopefully the humor of a mat rider with a huge stash of wax is not lost on you)

There are some even neat wax scrapers available

(beats using a credit card, oh you cut those up? good!)

So where are we now?

more is out

less is in

waves come in sets

But don't come in a store.

The truth is no thing you can buy will make you feel like this

"Family treasures can't come thru the front gate"

So ask for a new beach towel.

That one in the car trunk stinks!

If it's "a magic towel" so much the better