Here’s the thing: I don’t have affiliate links (read: no financial incentive), and I find the whole linking-and-photo-grabbing process incredibly tedious. Also, several family members read this blog, so I can’t post what I’m giving this year until after Christmas.
That said, I love getting inspiration ahead of/during the gift-buying season. Here are my gift recaps from the last two years:
A few standouts worth re-mentioning: the battery organizer (top-tier husband/father/son gift; I gave one to John last year and it is so functional), my beloved Bog Bag knock-off (ridiculously practical), LEGO (always!), and Monopoly Deal—the game I will happily play even when I’m tired, peopled-out, and don’t want to think very hard. It makes a perfect stocking stuffer. We also love and use our milk frother (we have Bodum brand) regularly. My heated foot mat is another one of my most-used and beloved household items.
Here is a post I wrote last year about thrifting gifts and why our fairly minimalistic family ends up with a lot of presents under the tree at Christmas. And here’s another one about our annual Christmas treasure hunts.
A few general thoughts:
GIFT BUNDLES
If we’re giving a gift to an entire family (or want to bulk up a gift card), here are some easy “group-friendly” bundles:
- Warm drink: Local coffee shop gift card + cute mug + bag of coffee / hot chocolate / tea + artisan chocolate.
- Movie night: Popcorn bowl + theatre gift card (or tickets to a live show) + cozy blanket.
- Beauty basket: Face masks + loofah + fancy body wash + hair towel.
- Readers retreat: A favourite book (or two) + highlighters + bookmarks + gift card to a local bookstore.
REPEAT GIFTS
Giving the same type of gift every year can make life so much easier—predictable for the giver and delightful for the recipient.
Every Christmas Eve since birth, our kids have received a new ornament. The only thing I have to decide is which ornament, and it’s one of their most-loved traditions. I also give a close friend a new tree ornament for her (October) birthday every year.
And LEGO makes an annual appearance under our tree without fail.
2025 GIFT GUIDES ON THE INTERWEBS
(Heads up: I’m pretty sure every one of these contains affiliate links.)
- My absolute favourite gift guides every year are from Young House Love. They’re fun, affordable, and full of clever ideas. Lots of the items aren’t logical for me to get (because of shipping from the US), but I love browsing their guides! Here is this season’s guides from Young House Love!
- Our own lovely Suzanne pulls together top-notch, wildly thoughtful ideas. Here’s one for any book lovers on your list (it is
chef’sreader’s kiss). - Colleen knows what she’s doing: with seven kiddos, she buys a lot of gifts!
- Andrea from Momfessionals is a great source for realistic, non-hoity-toity gifts (I can love a good design blog and admit that $300 salt cellars are never going to show up in my stocking). Here’s one for tween/teen girls and another for teen boys.
- Janae from Hungry Runner Girl just published a gift guide for runners and everyone else in the family.
- Not necessarily always uber affordable (you might find a $300 salt cellar), there are some lovely higher-end ideas from Chris Loves Julia.
- And here’s a roundup of Amazon gift guides from Shay at Mix and Match Mama.
I haven’t wrapped a single gift yet, but the stockpile is growing and I’m hoping to dedicate an entire morning to tackle it in one fell swoop. I usually wrap in stages, but this year I feel like I need the “mass production” approach.
Bonus: we recently bought a 10-pack of door handles and each came in a perfectly plain brown box. I’m going to use them all for wrapping—tie on a ribbon and… bam. Festive minimalism meets free holiday packaging.
Your turn.
- Let me know about some good gift guides you’ve come across this year!
- What’s on your wishlist?
- Any great gift suggestions? I’m all ears.
Discover more from The Optimistic Musings of a Pessimist
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
I’m trying to ignore holiday gift giving right now. I’ll buy too much if I start purchasing every cool deal. My husband and I are trying to come up with an experience gift, but so far each idea has massive flaws.
I like membership to science museums or the like. We used cash from family members to buy our summer pool passed. We received a 10 jump pass to the trampoline park last year that was really thoughtful.
I did buy gifts for kids from the Angel tree at our church. One teen girl wanted a kitchen thermometer- she likes to cook. So I also added silicone mini spatulas ( so helpful in the kitchen), y-peeler, nifty measuring cup, and silicone oven mitts. A useful bundle for a cook! The younger girl wanted a bracelet making kit and playdough, which were both on sale. I also put some candy and school supplies in the gift bags – most kids love little treats.
I know what you mean about starting too early. I always think I’m finished (because I start early) and then find all sorts of things at the last minute.
Memberships are such a great idea. We don’t really have too much handy that would qualify for that, but I think zoo passes/science museums/pool passes (none of which are really relevant for us) are genius ideas! So practical and they tend to be expensive so it’s a total win.
Great, practical, yet still fun ideas you’ve listed. I swear by y-peelers!!!
Your bundling ideas are spot-on! Simple, practical, and easy to customise.
I always bring things with me when I come back from Cape Town: useful, small items like kitchen towels, hand-painted candles, soaps, honey, tea… the sort of stuff people actually use. It’s a relief to have a system that doesn’t involve endless browsing.
Also: the plain brown door-handle boxes are genius. Free, minimal, and tidy, that’s exactly my style, ha!
I love having useful things to give. Bonus points if they’re extra cute or delicious. It elevates the gift (and makes it feel like a gift), but yet it also feels soooo good knowing something will actually be used, consumed, and enjoyed.
I love those bundled gifts. Such a fun idea!
I mostly have books on my wish list! My MIL gives me cash and I used that ahead of Christmas to buy myself a stand mixer!
Thank goodness for pre-Christmas deals and stand mixers. Can you imagine a holiday without it????
Books seem like a wonderful choice for you, Nicole. Can’t wait to see what you get.
My husband’s side drew names this year. I got my avid gardener sis-in-law. I’m gonna make a gardener’s gift basket. So far I’ve thrifted a white wire basket and some gloves.
Ohhhh. A gardener’s basket – such a fun idea. And lots to choose from. Seeds/bulbs, gloves, tools, books! I bet she will love it!
I LOVE gift guides!!! And I always love your Christmas gift recaps. WHY is it so much fun to see what other people get for Christmas??? I’m in full gift buying mode right now, so I need ideas! Thanks for this post.
I love gift guides (at least ones that feel “relevant” to me…) and I love, love, love reading Christmas gift recaps. They are such a lot of work so I got lazy this year and just directed people to last year. I really should take pictures as I wrap so I can pull together my gift recaps quickly after Christmas is all over!
We always gift our adult children large baskets full of gourmet food items, wine, hand soaps/shower gel, and small kitchen items (this year I bought them bamboo cutting boards and cute spatulas). We wrap a lot of the items, so it’s fun to watch them unwrap and be surprised by things like Trader Joe’s Cowboy Caviar. They get a big kick out of it and have fun snacks to enjoy for months.
I could not love this gift idea more if I tried! It’s both exciting AND delicious!
The bundle idea is great – it says “I’m thinking of you so I got you something fun that I know you will enjoy using”.
My most reliable source for gifts are Suzanne’s guides. Yesterday I was very surprised to hit gold on the WSJ stocking stuffer gift guide. I was expecting it to be something like $300 salt cellars, but I actually found THREE things that people I know would want. Ok, fine, one of those people is me. But Elisabeth, you don’t understand, there is something on there that MY PARENTS will be glad to get. They are the hardest people to shop for.
THREE THINGS! That is huge! I am so happy for you. Now I need to know what these magic gift ideas were…
My parents are medium-hard. I actually struggle the most with John because we tend to research and buy things we might want/need, so aside from LEGO…I usually find it more of a struggle to come up with things they’ll actually use!
Such great ideas, Elisabeth. I love the Reader’s Retreat idea!
A copy of Chester’s Miracle would make a LOVELY addition to any holiday book basket 🙂
I don’t remember seeing you talk about a heated foot mat. I’m gonna have to look into that one. My feet are always cold. Love the ornament a year idea – a little late over here and we might have needed to buy four trees to display them all, if I’d started down that path. I did think yesterday that I could maybe look for a special ornament for Kay and Rae – something with the adoption date on it maybe, or an adoption themed ornament.
I’m resisting shopping this year. I really don’t want to buy a bunch of things. I stayed up way too late last night looking for flights (again) to see if we can’t squeeze in a few days to Florida over break. Not likely gonna happen, but if we did that as the main gift, I could get away with buying little side gifts and that’s my preference. I don’t have a gift guide to suggest, but I agree the ones Colleen and Suzanne share are also full of great ideas.
That is the challenge with an ornament each year. The plan is for the kids to take the ornaments with them when they leave home but until that point…our tree is getting full! But I love it 🙂
An experience gift is a great idea, especially in a big family where it is so expensive to go together AND where physical gifts would take up so much space. I hope you find the unicorn flights you’re looking for!
A heated desk mat is a perfect gift for someone who is always cold and works in an office. I love mine and have gifted two of them!
I haven’t even bought my Secret SANta gift yet – I need to get started on shopping!
I enjoy heated everything! As someone who lives cold, having a foot mat (I’m using mine this very second) is a little winter luxury I never want to be without.
I bought myself a battery box a few years ago and loved it so much, I have gifted it several times. It’s the gift you don’t know you need and want until you have it. I highly recommend this as a gift to ANYONE.
The battery box was the sleeper hit of last Christmas!! I could get one for my dad…
We do a family bundle gift for Phil’s side of the family, and I am stumped this year for what would please everyone. I’m thinking a recipe and a kitchen gadget but that seems lame. I love when gift giving is fun and thoughtful, but when it’s expected and forced it is such a drag. Here comes my inner grinch 😉 Thanks for including me in your links!
It can be SO hard to come up with something that is fun but also doesn’t completely shatter the budget.
We really don’t give gifts aside from people in our immediate household. No cousins, aunts, uncles, etc. I know that might sound Grinchy, but it takes SO much pressure off me at Christmas.
I remember the pink tote from last year!! It’s so cute and practical.
I have also stockpiled this year, but nothing is wrapped yet. I just started decorating yesterday and we are hosting two parties these next two weekends; it’s getting gritty around here!
I clicked on some of the links, and I’ll see if anything catches my eye–my husband is the hardest to buy for.
I LOVE my pink tote and use it pretty much daily.
I have nothing wrapped but lots of boxes with gifts I’ve ordered (and haven’t opened yet). THIS WEEK, Suz. I must do some wrapping. If nothing else, I really need to get a handle on exactly what I have and how much I have for the kids. I want things to be quasi “equal” and right now I don’t have a good mental tally of the size of their “piles.”
I like the gift bundle ideas! We get off quite easily and do not have to buy many gifts fortunately. We are waiting to get through Will’s birthday to figure out Christmas gifts for the boys. But we did buy them a gaming system called “Playground” for a joint gift. It’s a motion sensor game so you have to be up and active to play. Our friends have it and they love it. It was $50 off and I got a $25 target gift card when I bought it. We’ll get each of them a few more things. I think Santa will get them a membership to the Science Museum as we had a blast there on Friday.
My MIL is the only person that still shops for me. I think I am getting a gift card for a massage which is ideal. All I want are gift cards to places I know I’ll go, like the massage place and Starbucks!
Memberships are so great; I wish we had a science museum handy. I would 100% have asked for memberships for Christmas if such a thing existed where we live. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
Massages and Starbucks sound like the literal best combination gift out there. Belle would lose her mind to get those. (She LOVES massages; she’s never gone to a massage therapist yet – somehow that seems…weird to send a teen but would have me rub her neck and back ALL day if I would do such a thing. I will not…)
These are great ideas — I especially love the “bundles” strategy. Thanks so much for the shoutout! I am almost done with my own Christmas shopping, thanks to my husband for really buckling down this weekend. Only a couple of small things left to buy.
Wow! Gold stars! That must feel amazing. I *think* I’m almost done??? Just a few little things to get here and there to fill in some “gaps.”
Can you please let me know the precise details of the milk frother Elisabeth, as I think my husband would love this and I am usually terrible at surprise presents for him. Thanks
We have the Bodum milk frother (like this one)
But I think just about anything will do brand wise. It gets almost daily use in our house!!!
I don’t need to buy too many gifts. I always buy the girls a book, and I think if I stopped now, I might have a mutiny on my hands. I think they like getting a book to read that they haven’t had to pick out themselves, plus they always love my picks. It’s always literary fiction for S and dystopian or fantasy for H. My mum always bought us great books for Christmas when we were kids and I loved that too, but she stopped doing that as we got older.
Gold stars for carrying on the tradition. It’s so nice to keep some of that magic alive and it’s wonderful the girls still enjoy it!
I won’t be buying a lot of gifts this year, but I always love looking at gift guides and wish lists! You never know if there will be something that you *need* in your life – haha. I posted a wish list earlier last week. You shared some great ideas and linked to some great gift guides. Thank you for that.
I love gift bundles– giving AND getting them. I think I am going to do a self care bundle for Minnie’s teacher– gift card to a nail salon, fun color of nail polish, a couple of face masks, etc
You are a star at gifting!