Every three seconds someone in the world, usually a child, dies in extreme poverty from hunger or a preventable disease.

Come the morning of December 25, I will be searching under the tree for gifts—specifically for those that are gender neutral, tasteful, and wildly inappropriate. That's because I believe that just as a stranger is a friend you haven't met, a beautifully wrapped Christmas atrocity is a misfit purchase destined to be dumped on some other poor soul at my convenience.

One difference between an original work - furniture, art, anything- and a knockoff? The genuine item allows the mind to travel back through time, to a distant geography, and to people and their daily long-ago lives.