A wall of gift cards for various businesses.

Make the Happy New Year even happier 


By Nancy Ford

Happy New Year to all our dear MONTROSE STAR readers! I trust everybody had a wonderful holiday season, and that we all are ready to see what triumphs and calamities 2024 bring. To paraphrase the ever-quotable Margo Channing: ‘Fasten your seatbelts, it’s going to be 365 bumpy nights.â€Â 

I also trust that Santa was generous to you, in keeping with his long-held naughty/nice tradition. Though, by comparison, how naughty could any of us have been? If you didn’t find yourself guilty of having beheaded an enemy, embracing Nazi rhetoric nor scorning Tay-Tay for having found true love, Santa likely did not disappoint. 

As for me, the holidays were just this side of perfect, full of friends, family, and food. Continuing our Christmas tradition, my better half also gifted me with not one but two recently published books: Barbra Streisand’s and Liz Cheney’s memoirs. Talk about strange shelf-fellows. Hello, Gorgeous! 

But now it’s time to make some serious decisions as the New Year dawns. No, it is not about which resolution to abandon first. Rather, what I should do with all these gift cards I invariably receive because — surprise! — I’m hard to buy for? 

It’s not that I’m picky. I already have everything I need. Really. If everyone were as blessed as the Universe has determined me to be, it truly would be a glorious world. As a result, I receive my share of gift cards.  

Ah, gift cards — consumerism’s alternative to giving a wrinkled, dog-eared, Covid-covered $ 20 bill to a loved one. The best gift cards, obviously, are bank cards, allowing the recipient total control over how that card will be spent. It’s not that we don’t appreciate the Wendy’s and Whataburger cards. Chick-fil-A, not so much. 

Chances are that a $20 $30 or even $50 gift card from Aunt Donna will not make a difference in my comfort level. But it could make a big impact on someone else’s.  

With that altruistic thought in mind, here are a few suggestions that will keep the holiday spirit burning brightly long after our artificial Christmas trees are returned to the attic. 

Make an unhoused person’s day. Go out on a limb for that forlorn but hopeful lady in the median. Slide her the plastic funds you have been carrying around that are making your wallet so bulky that, when seated, you look like you have scoliosis. If you’re fearful that an indigent individual will just spend the money on booze or drugs (like many of us housed people do), fork over those Wendy’s, Whataburger, and — especially — Chick-fil-A cards.   

Donate to Montrose Center. The Center is set to welcome a new CEO in February (see story in this issue), so how about showing some tactile support for her efforts to helm queer Houston’s mainstay community jewel? Certainly, HATCH, the Center’s youth program, its programs for senior LGBTQs or any of the myriad groups the Center provides to support our community in times of trouble could use an extra boost. 

Tip your favorite bartender — again. Sure, you follow the accepted standard of decency by tipping your mixologist at least a dollar for every drink he or she serves you, whether it’s simply prying the cap off a long neck or constructing a more work-intensive Grey Goose dirty martini, filthy, shaken not stirred, two olives, remove pimento. Imagine your BT’s surprise and delight at receiving an unexpected post-holiday plastic bonus. (Editor’s note: you may want to continue the de rigueur tradition of tipping scantily clad dancers with actual cold, hard cash — foldable, paper kind. Few dancers appreciate a roll of quarters weighing down their G-strings.) 

Surprise a random person in the grocery store checkout line by covering the tab. Maybe it’s a harried young mother juggling two kids and a WIC card. Maybe it’s an older gentleman carefully calculating the price of each item that rolls down that black conveyor belt, hoping he doesn’t have to choose which purchase to leave behind. When the clerk announces the total for their purchases, slap down that plastic. Then get ready for a hug, and maybe a few tears. 

Support the League of Women Voters. Lord knows this group has its work cut out for it in the coming year, what with the rollicking Presidential Election coming up in November. And by “rollickingâ€, I mean terrifying. Without this fine organization’s nonpartisan dedication to empowering voters in free and fair elections, it’s not a stretch to fear that future elections could be devoid of anything resembling freedom and fairness. And women.  

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