Still Shopping? Welcome, Soul Sisters!
Welcome to the Christmas season, everyone! The giant plastic candy canes erected in the park outside my apartment on November 1 are now officially allowed to be there (I’ve been giving them the silent treatment), and I am opening the doors on not one but two advent calendars. I love advent calendars. Whee! Anyone want to sing carols?
Of course, there’s the dark side of December, too. This part of the year for me usually ends up being a mad scramble to buy gifts for my friends and family and get them crammed into boxes and shipped everywhere they need to go, while imagining that I am going to start making Christmas cookies and sending them to people at any moment. In an effort to help out folks like me whose shopping does not begin until December 1, today I thought I’d share my favorite places to shop for, well, stuff. Stocking stuffers, quirky gifts, things for people for whom you’re afraid to buy a serious gift but have to get something… you know what I’m talking about. It’s easy enough to get on the internet and find what you’re looking for if you’re looking for something specific. If you have no idea? That’s a lot harder, particularly if you don’t want to spend a ton. Here are some of my favorite sites to pick up interesting little gifts and inspire me to fill out the stockings.
First up, my newest find: Spoon Sisters. This is a great little site for fun little items if you’re looking for something entertaining if not necessarily useful. I have been a patron of Spoon Sisters since, oh, about two weeks ago, so I am still having fun romping through their wares. Some of them are cute, many of them are funny, and a pleasing number of them are totally affordable. I got sucked into buying a set of jazzy black pencils with Swarovski crystals after seeing them in the December issue of Lucky (25% off with code LUCKYBREAKS4!), and ended up picking up stocking stuffers for all and sundry. Cat tape measure, anyone? Monster temporary tattoos for your kid’s hand?
My old standby for real gifts is Uncommon Goods, which bills itself as “unique gifts with a creative twist.” If you have no idea what to get someone, surfing Uncommon Goods might just save you. It’s not ideal for stocking stuffers, as most of the inventory is a little more expensive than I want to spend on stocking gifts, but it’s a great place for fun, reasonably-priced under-the-tree gifts. My current favorite is the nifty port decanter and glasses, but Uncommon Goods has cool items for every room in your house, plus a selection of arty jewelry and other personal accessories.
If you shop for any scientists or even sci-fi fans, ThinkGeek is the perfect place to look. If, like me, you are a little on the geeky side, you are likely to find looking through ThinkGeek hilariously funny even if you don’t end up buying anything. I have previously brought attention to the TaunTaun sleeping bag (whose existence continues to crack me up), but ThinkGeek carries all kinds of geeky amusements, including science-based toys for kids and adults, giant stuffed plush microbes (I kid you not — pick your own disease from more than a dozen offerings!), and even a collection of weird edibles, with a heavy emphasis on caffeination for the lab-o-holic.
Another slightly unlikely but delightfully affordable option for picking up houseware gifts is Pearl River Mart. The website of an Asian market in New York, Pearl River Mart is admittedly stuffed with weird Asian trinkets in which you may or may not be interested, but it also has a great selection of ceramic bowls, tea sets, and other dishware that can make a modest but elegant gift (particularly handy for work folks for whom you don’t want to get anything too personal). It ranges to beautiful (I personally love the ocean blue crackle finish dishes) to adorable (could the owl tea pot possibly be any cuter?). It also carries all the other traditional mainstays of Chinatown like silk jewelry pouches and paper lanterns. (What little girl wouldn’t enjoy a paper parasol?)
To fill out the stockings, I always fall back on good chocolate. (Shocking, I know.) After all the other costs of the Christmas season, though, I don’t necessarily want to spend a ton. One of the best places to go for that? Jacques Torres Chocolate. As I’ve previously mentioned, I have a problematic addiction to their chocolate covered cornflake clusters, but the store is full of great chocolate covered items from Cheerios to espresso beans, and I have yet to try one that I didn’t like. A bag of cornflake clusters goes for only $5, so it can be a nice low-key way to make life merry for your favorite chocolate fanatics.
Good hunting, everyone! I think I’m almost done. You know, except for the Christmas cards, and the chocolates I was going to make, and the shipping…
The Spoon Sisters is a great website, I just bought my fiance a couple stocking stuffers. Thanks!
Fun, no? I’m glad it was useful for you!