These are a few of your favorite things...

November 10, 2014 4:47 PM

I want to simplify my gift giving/selection process, try to make it a little more routine and so easier for me to cope with each year, without being boring for the recipients. I'm thinking of having a list of categories for gifts (food consumable, household/personal consumable, sentimental, kitchen gadget, interactive) like I've heard some people do with kids gifts (something to read, something to wear and something fun)...

...and then within each category I just have to have one representative thing. I can mix and match the different categories depending on the person.

I do still plan on giving personal gifts to the people closest to us, but many of them (I'm looking at you parents!) don't really need a lot of things, and when they do, they just get them. Also three of our five collective parents have almost no other family than us, so we want to have multiple gifts for them to open, but I seriously don't have the time or brain power to come up with 5 different personalized gifts for 3 very different comfortable 60 somethings that don't really need anything.


I want most of this to be 1) make one list 2) choose items from column A, B & C 3) done. But I also don't want the gifts to suck, so I'm hoping to find good, or even great, items that fit in each category.

So, what are your favorite things that might work for gifts?

Accessibility is key, easy to buy (common stores or the internet) or easy to make. The more universal/broadly applicable the better. And the more specific the better, links would be awesome. I'll start out with some of my ideas/past used items:
1. Food consumable
- Chocolate Bourbon Fudge, yumm!
- The balsalmic drizzle mentioned on here (I haven't tried this yet, but it sounds good!)
- Infused liquors (I want to try earl gray infused something)
- Homemade caramels

2. Household/personal consumable (like bubble bath, lotion, candles, plants, that sort of thing)
- Forced bulbs in a pretty vase/pot (seems easy and scalable)

3. Sentimental
- We started doing a calendar each year with family pictures, specifically the shutterfly desk calendar, it was good quality and because of the hard cover I think will make it easier to keep and stick on the bookshelf than a wall calendar

4. Kitchen gadget
- Kitchen shears
- The best garlic press ever
- A great silicone spatula (perfect for fried eggs)

5. Interactive (I'm thinking things that would be good for some entertainment value on the day they are opened, especially for when spending a long day with blended families, in laws and in laws of in laws, etc.)
- A funny book, maybe something like this, or this - blurbs of text, quick to read, easy to pick up or pass around
- Nerf guns

Thanks!

posted by pennypiper to Shopping (23 answers total)

Best answer: Flavored or infused salts or sugars are super easy and scaleable.
-Kosher salt + lemon zest, thyme, black pepper goes with anything. Substitute the herb of your choice.
-Kosher salt + ground celery seeds = best Bloody Mary salt.
-Sugar infused with vanilla beans or lemon verbena gives a nice sensory hit when opened.
posted by janell at 4:58 PM on November 10, 2014

Best answer: I love how you've framed this!

5. Interactive - games? deck of cards? maybe something from a good toy store like Learning Express or whatever is local.

Maybe take a look at subscription boxes for ideas. This sounds like a personalized subscription box. Quarterly seems to have something for everyone.

Also, I've been looking at Kickstarter and have come across a couple fun projects that are easily added to a gift box (these have already completed but there are others): flavored woods to age whisky in a day and edible coffee bars to eat your caffeine. Fun to include information on the project to the giftee.

If this crowd is not on audio devices, then a CD of good podcasts tailored to their interests might be great. Hardcore History for history buffs, This American Life, Serial (by This American Life) are a few ideas.

A theme idea: a New Year box including things for the new year - a healthy cookbook, a pedometer, a vegetable noodle maker (I can vouch for this simple one under $10) with a recipe card for zucchini noodles, a nice fancy tea that seems to be so popular now.
posted by RoadScholar at 5:40 PM on November 10, 2014

Best answer: 4. This universal scraper is something I use all the time, is an inexpensive and really versatile kitchen tool. If you already have one you want another one. It's a perfect gift.
posted by sockermom at 5:43 PM on November 10, 2014 [3 favorites]

Best answer: Kitchen:
-A cute egg timer, with a magnet so it can stick on the fridge.
-A good quality vegetable peeler (maybe in the $15 area). I bought one at a going-out-of-business sale after only ever using crappy $3 ones, and it is LIFE TRANSFORMING.

Consumable:
Different honey varieties can be fun to try. Here's some examples of a sample set with nice gifty packaging.
posted by showbiz_liz at 5:45 PM on November 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: 4.

Decent wooden citrus reamer like this
Palm zester
Palm brush for vegetables and fruit
+ lemon curd and recipes finished with lemon zest or lemon bars!


Salt pig
or salt dish
+ fancy salts!

5. New York Times Crossword puzzle book and fancy pencils (along with useable erasers)
posted by jetlagaddict at 6:10 PM on November 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

Best answer: A quality pen: Uni-Ball Jetstream Pen: 3 for $8.49 (Reviewed on Cool Tools here)
posted by RoadScholar at 6:12 PM on November 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

My brother solved this by taking ceramics classes for six years and inflicting his terrible lopsided vases on everyone every Christmas.
posted by Jacqueline at 6:21 PM on November 10, 2014 [8 favorites]

I like to browse the Kikkerland website for fun, practical gifts. They have stuff for home, kitchen, and office categories.
posted by shortyJBot at 6:26 PM on November 10, 2014

Response by poster: My brother solved this by taking ceramics classes for six years and inflicting his terrible lopsided vases on everyone every Christmas.

Ha! I did this as well for several years (though my specialty was lopsided bowls), but my craft center closed down several years ago, and I finally just broke down and bought a wheel. So next year I'll add a "homemade pottery" category :)
posted by pennypiper at 6:50 PM on November 10, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: May I recommend a book? No one has ever read it, and everyone loves it: Color, by Victoria Finlay.
posted by ersatzkat at 6:58 PM on November 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

This eye mask seems rather pricy at $25.90 but it becomes absolutely indispensable as soon as you try sleeping in it.
posted by Dragonness at 7:27 PM on November 10, 2014 [2 favorites]

"The more universal/broadly applicable the better."

Socks and extension cords. Everyone I know has at one point needed more socks or another extension cord. I have actually done this.
posted by vapidave at 7:34 PM on November 10, 2014 [5 favorites]

Best answer: USB battery packs!
posted by Otter_Handler at 3:29 AM on November 11, 2014

Best answer: I actually keep extras of these kitchen items at home, so that I can give them to houseguests who use them and want them.

Victorinox vegetable peeler
Butter bell
posted by workerant at 7:06 AM on November 11, 2014 [1 favorite]

We always give everyone a book. Not the same book, and not always a new book, but everyone in our family gets a book, no matter what else we give them.

This arose from my partner's family's Christmas Day traditions, where after gifts were opened and brunch consumed, and before they went out for Chinese, everyone would take their Christmas book to separate corners and read it. My family of origin is not quite bookish enough for that, but they all love getting new books.
posted by linettasky at 9:05 AM on November 11, 2014 [3 favorites]

Response by poster: These are great! I could mark them all as best answers but, am doing the ones that seem the best fit for us.

I hope folks will continue to add new ideas!
posted by pennypiper at 9:11 AM on November 11, 2014

Best answer: Sorry jetlagaddict, I respectfully disagree with your lemon reamer, in favor of this lemon squeezer.

I've also given ratcheting multi-screwdrivers for the kitchen junk drawer.

(so glad you liked my balsamic drizzle idea!)
posted by sarajane at 10:39 AM on November 11, 2014

If it's useful where you live, the Butter Boy (or Girl) is whimsical and functional.
posted by wenestvedt at 10:42 AM on November 11, 2014

For interactive items, I like to give puzzles. There are of course jigsaw puzzles, which everyone can do together, Rubik cubes and variations, brain teasers, like interlocking metal or wooden puzzlers, crosswords, tangrams, sudoku, etc. Board and card games are also sort of along these lines.
posted by annsunny at 10:44 AM on November 11, 2014

Best answer: 1. Consumable: Torani Syrups. For coffee drinkers: Hazelnut or seasonal flavors. Let's you make cafe-style coffee at home. For soda drinking, I use Black Cherry in my Diet Coke. You can get them in liquor stores or in places like World Market import stores or TJMaxx/Marshalls in their home section. There are other brands, and they come in sugar free versions.

2. Household: I like my solar lights that you push in the ground along your driveway or front porch. It's just enough light that I don't trip if I forgot to turn the porch light on before I leave. I linked to a set of 8, but mine are actually individual lights and I only use one in the front and one in the back. They were less than $2 each.

2a - in response to the USB battery packs listed above - use the word "lipstick" in your google search and get one of the slim cartridge looking ones. They are much easier to keep in a pocket or purse and they have enough power to completely recharge your cell phone one time, which is usually all you need in a day.

3 & 5. Sentimental: something from their childhood. Figure out what decade they were age 5-12 and get a toy or a TV show or a candy from that decade. This might be too hard if they are all different ages, but if your group is all from the same decade, it might be fun for one person to get (for example) an erector set and another person to get the Johnny Quest show and another person a case of Pop Rocks, and then this can become an interactive thing for the group to participate in all of it together.

4. Kitchen Gadget: a good ice cream scoop. I don't have a recommendation, but everyone always needs one.

5. Interactive: remote control cars. Set up a race track. This works really well if you have folks of different ages - it feels weird to give toy cars to grandpa, but if there is also a grandkid and now we can race, then it's perfectly reasonable.
posted by CathyG at 7:43 AM on November 12, 2014 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I like tea and find that tea things work well; I get loose tea from New Mexico Tea Company and they have a lot of other good stuff too, including infusers and the bags that you can use as infusers. Honey also is a good consumable that a lot of people use but that still feels sort of fancy. Same with nice jam/jelly/marmalade.

Bakers can always use pretty cupcake liners.

Fancy soaps are nice as are lotions and such; you almost definitely have a nice local boutique that makes that kind of thing or there might be local people who sell them to your local co-op market or several little stores or whatever; you'll probably notice them when you go out.

Socks were already mentioned, but they are great. My dad already has pretty much everything he needs/wants and is super easily amused so I regularly buy weird socks with silly things on them, which students and random strangers compliment him on, because they occasionally feature unicorns and rainbows.

Nice hair stuff can be good, especially for the long-haired on your list. Nail polish can be good sometimes.

My family has a sort of tradition of "Christmas toys", which are mostly wind-ups and tops and which go away in the Christmas box and generally get added to every year; we like to get everyone to help get them all started and running around the living room riotously at the same time. (Note: My entire family is adults. Theoretically.)

Cost Plus/World Market has a ton of little stocking-stuffer food things-- little nutellas, cookies, stuff like that; my family tends to rely on those a lot when we put together "gift basket" type things.
posted by NoraReed at 11:44 AM on November 12, 2014

Best answer: I thought of another one - I received this Russian loupe as a gift about seven years ago. Apparently it's the best of its kind out there. I literally use it every day for something or other.
posted by Dragonness at 8:43 AM on November 17, 2014

Response by poster: I wanted to come back and add a few more things/ideas.

1/4.
Cold brew coffee kit, inspired by perusing Quarterly as RoadScholar suggested (great idea!), I've recently discovered how tasty cold brewed coffee is, so this is one I'm excited about sharing with all the coffee drinkers on my list.
• The quarterly version includes these coffee bags and this lovely, but expensive, wood lidded jar.
• I think my version is going to be this reasonable, and elegantly simple, cold brew coffee maker, a can of Bustelo coffee, and a Lifefactory bottle (one of my favorite things ever, which I forgot about when making my original list, can use for coffee, tea, carrot juice and no absorption of funky tastes or making your lovely jasmine tea taste like plastic!)

2.
These nail clippers from another ask that has made the poster "absurdly, stupidly happy for well over a decade"

Sarajane suggested a ratcheting multi screwdriver, so I wanted to link to the one that I've had for going on 20 years. The bits are stored inside the handle, and it is (or at least was) pretty good quality.

For cable management, a multi port usb power brick that you can plug multiple devices into and this Quirky cable manager

DIY rice/wheat heating pads - I've not made these yet but they look super simple and I love my store-bought version. Plus a chance to buy small quantities of gorgeous fabric (or use up scraps you might already have).

4.
Round ice cube molds - a bit gimicky perhaps but if you have whiskey drinkers in your life they might be fun and appreciated

5.
Magic 8 ball

Mini microscope or magnifying loupes
posted by pennypiper at 11:16 AM on November 26, 2014