Well, we don’t mind saying that we are completely out of gift-giving ideas. This is the way of things, we are thinking, eight days before Christmas, and four days before the exceptionally important cut-off for most online shopping things. Here’s how in denial we are: Until about ten minutes ago, we were pretty sure we could still get something shipped from the farthest corner of Africa in time for Christmas. Like we said, denial.
In any case: again, strength in numbers. This weekend a whole bunch of adorable Madewell t-shirts showed up at our house, and we’re going to give two(!) away every day this week. All anyone who wants to play needs to do is: in the comment section, today, tell us the favorite gift you’re giving anyone. You don’t need to leave any identifiying things, as we’re sure nobody wants to spill their favorite gift on a blog. We’ll be back tomorrow to share ours, since we’re giving it tonight.
In the meantime: tell us your favorite gift you’re *giving*, and we’ll be back tomorrow (really!) to announce the winners! (Who will be chosen at random.)
And in the meantime: We love Madewell, not least for their name, which we think is very clever. Naming is so hard. We spent like three years coming up with Bunnyshop, and then when we were all, “But we’re going to be stuck with the initials ‘BS’ forever’,” just totally gave up.
NB no online shopping yet but we hope soon.
Above: Madewell’s cardigan, $54
A year subscription to the Sunday New York Times. Nothing’s better than reading the paper in bed!
That is a really great freaking idea. We might steal that one.
j. crew magic flip wallet
j. crew magic flip wallet
perfect gift for guys and girls
I’m giving my sister-in-law a purple felted circle scarf by rubyjo, an etsy seller (http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5243370). The package came from Melbourne and the scarf was so deeply hued and absolutely perfect: recycled, wearable art. It came with a kimono-fabric covered kilt pin, too. (No longer in the shop but it’s a similar product as rubyjo’s avatar.)
Every year it takes me forever to think of something to get my parents because when they want something they just buy it for themselves.. but this year I am going to get my dad the BACON flavored Vosges chocolate bar and for my mom I’m going to donate 50$ to Smile Train ( http://www.smiletrain.org ) because she has always said that she would love to go to third world countries and fix cleft lips and palates. I know it sounds corny but I really think that it will make her day!
a stocking of accessories and accoutrements for my girlfriends upcoming trip to japan (first time and first time out of the country), a lodis passport wallet, a watch that speaks japanese (http://fredflare.com/customer/product.php?productid=3271&cat=283), lonely planet japan, hello kitty rhinestone bobbypins, japanese snacks and candy, yan-yan’s, rice candy etc.
A Roomba for my industrial designer little brother, who just moved to a new apartment!
A case of Sierra Nevada for the boyfriend.
I’m knitting a scarf for my boyfriend in his school colors.
We are giving everyone we know a cookbook.
But it’s a special cookbook because we are known for being excellent cooks and the recipes are all ours – all of our favorites are in there and there are fun family photos (colander on the head and such) throughout.
We made it on Blurb – the writing and editing took 9 months and we love it.
And we are only speaking in the third person because we ALL worked on it. Everyone in the Bird household.
- ‘I Love Dior’ Lip Palette ($40, limited edition from Sephora.com)
( I ‘love’ to give gifts that I’d love to receive as well!)
a subscription to “real simple” and this cute teapot: http://www.portsmouthtea.com/Main.php?do=teapotDetail&pid=317
I gave my best friend a LePhotique (from Etsy) neckalce with an antique bycicle on it.
For one of those does-it-all superwoman: a massage gift certificate.
Brother in the Marines just got deployed. For Mom and Dad, I got key fobs with watches on them and had set them to the timezone in which my brother will be, and had them engraved with “Brock Clock” because his name is Brock. Now they can know what time it is where he is without having to do tricky math!
I designed personalized stationery for one of my good friends. I made 5 different designs in her favorite color, pink! The set of 5 cards and envelopes are placed in a small wooden box with matching stickers that I also made. There are a couple pictures in my blog. I really hope she likes it, because I sure do!
the Little Miss Gift Set and Mr. Men Gift Set (the books by by Roger Hargreaves). love these!
My boyfriend is really into Russian History and photography so I found a vintage photo of people outside of Lenin’s Mausoleum, waiting in the snow to view the body, on eBay (complete with press clipping attached and dated) and am getting it professionally mounted and framed. Plus he’s getting a pair of warm wool socks to replace the pair that my dog ate…
My fabulous find this year was for my daughter who is adopted from China. We are Jewish and I found a Star of David with the Chinese symbol for wisdom in the middle. A true mesh of cultures!
And along that same vein, a secretary in my office who has no children truly has taken my daughter under her wing…so I got her a necklace that says “auntie” in Chinese!
Our favorite aunt just sent her daughter off to college. We’ve given her an amazing piece of art from Etsy showing a bird flying away from home…and coming back
I love etsy, handmade, personal…the best!
http://images.etsy.com/all_images/d/dc3/e42/il_430xN.15143754.jpg
a cooking light subscription – you can buy 3 for the price of one (only $18), and the recipes are actually GOOD. so i sent one to my bff, my secret santa, and my parents’ dog.
For my finikey (sp?) little sister who refuses to try new cuisine, I bought Chopstick Kids
Chinese with Ease chopstick holder. There is a little, pink, girl-shaped piece of rubber in the box with a chopstick sized hole in each leg, thus providing a much more stylish version of those little paper things that some Chinese restaurants attach to idiot-proof their untensiels for people like me. The box also has two nice, plasic chopsticks included. Love it!!
a case of wine to my family-away-from-family. and this was no mean trick – wine shipping laws in the states are insane, and we had to maneuver to figure out where we could send it legally. it’s going from CA to NYC to get (erm, by chinatown bus maybe??) to DC where hopefully it’ll be enjoyed in front of a toasty fire by my best friend and her fam. this was made doubly (triply?) tricky since I *am* not in CA, NYC, *or* DC… which also means sadly I won’t be sipping with them. but still. wine! so cheery and appropriate for every meal (except maybe breakfast).
I always have a really hard time figuring something out for my mom, but this year I know she really wants a new dutch oven, since the handles fell off of her old one. So I’m pretty excited to get her something she’ll actually use, and not the lame mom gifts I usually resort to!
I’m giving my mom a book that I researched and compiled of her great-grandfather, Fiddlin’ John Carson, who was the very first country music artist to ever be on the radio. He’s considered the original pioneer of country music, so he’s a huge part of our family history. The book has original photos, newspaper clippings, show flyers…you name it, it’s got it. For my dad, I made a book of old photos with captions of his whole family with the help of snapfish.com
Neither of them are really in need of anything and they’re both pretty impossible to buy for, so I was really proud of these ideas since they’re sentimental and something they can really treasure and won’t be outdated or useless or worn or forgettable.
For the foodie in my life:
Personal cooking class with an acclaimed local chef.
My best gift will actually be this year! My boyfriend’s really into Malcolm X and his philosophy but doesn’t have any of his books. So I scrounged in a LOT of used book stores to gather up a collection of eight books by and about Malcolm. I handmade a wooden box that I stained black. The back of the box isn’t a solid board like a conventional box; instead, I got two slender pieces of wood so that the back is a giant green X. In short, I made him a box set full of Malcolm X books…an “X-box”
(The X on the back is painted green, his favorite color, so it coincidentally is the colors of an actual X-box!)
My dad had neck surgery and hasn’t been able to get out much since. He’s obsessed with the squirrels in the backyard so I bought him a squirrel feeder.
I don’t know if this counts as a Christmas gift because I would have done it no matter what time of year. But my sister needs a bone marrow transplant and our surgeries are scheduled for the 23rd, so I guess its my christmas gift to her
I bought one of my boyfriend’s little sister (there are 4!) a jewelry making kit that I made myself. And by made I mean went out and bought the bases for rings and barettes and then all the little buttons, beads, crystals, etc to put on them. I’m planning on making some with her over vacation. The others are getting “kit” gifts too, except the youngest, who’s getting a toy xylophone.
Two tickets to the upcoming Wilco show, to my sister and her man. Best present ever?
Not just one but TWO books on Stalin for my dad. He’s crazy for Stalin. Uh…but not in that I-support-promoting-famine-and-other-atrocities way.
It’s still slightly weird.
I’m buying a super deluxe expresso machine for my mom who just returned from Florence with a raging cappuccino addiction. I hope she really likes it!
My sister is a full-time nursing student and new mom with a *very* tight budget, so with some help from her fiance, we were able to pay off her credit card debt as a xmas gift.
on a budget so i like to bake edible gifts for friends and gift with prosecco.
My dad, brother, and housemate all have no winter hats, so I’m knitting one for each of them, in non-scratchy wools and colors that will look great with their eyes. I’m super excited, since I haven’t been able to make any gifts for years, and they’re essential for living in winters in Michigan.
I got married in June and am still pretty broke from the whole shebang. Since my three sisters and two greatest friends were bridesmaids, I’m giving them each 2 framed photos from the wedding. It’s not exceptionally clever, but I am making my own frames for them. I think it’s a personalized gift that they are going to love.
http://www.simpleshoes.com/DIY oh yeah!
I’m giving everyone super cute spaghetti jars filled with ingredients in layers to make different kinds of cookies. Well, each persons favorite kind of cookie. Yum!
I’m giving my husband – who like many boys likes meat quite a lot – a subscription to the bacon of the month club from grateful palate. It comes with a pig snout to wear and fun bacon-related goodies…kind of fun
For my boyfriend (always a tough one)–
He’s really into fishing and this past summer we were in a Bass Pro Shops and he told me about some fancy brand fishing rod that he’s always wanted. I totally forgot about it and thought about getting him a wii till I realized they are just as hard to get as last year. Then I remembered the conversation in Bass Pro Shops so I did a little research and found out that he was talking about a G-Loomis fishing rod. I gave it to him for Hanukkah and he almost fell over because he couldn’t believe that I remembered the name of the rod he wanted. I’m pretty proud of myself for that one.
Acupuncture sessions for my mom. They’re expensive, so she never buys them for herself, but she’s so much happier after a trip to the acupuncturist (as am I!). The gift of health = priceless.
a pink tool set for my aunt, so my uncle will stop stealing her tools for around the house and lose them
My brother got married a few months ago; thus, we set an insanely low price point for gift exchange this year ($20 total! For both of them!).
So. The day before the wedding all the wedding party ladies went to get manicures and pedicures together. My now sister-in-law spent a bit of time agonizing over what shade to use and wound up loving what she picked. While she was drying she went and found the bottle and said the name of the shade out loud about three times.
Then I’m pretty sure she forgot all about it, what with getting married and all. Even if she hadn’t, the shade was from OPI’s “Garden Party” collection and thus no longer available at, say, Ulta in November.
I tracked it down for her on Amazon. $8.50 including shipping. Hooray!