Discovering Fun Gifts for the Holidays

I don’t always have time to find awesome items on my own, especially when trying to use the scarce resource of brainpower this time of year for finding gifts for friends and family. I can’t even think of what cool things there might be sometimes, so I use a few sites to help me brainstorm neat products and ideas. I’m definitely more attracted to nerdy items, so some of the sites I use are:

Oh The Things You Can Buy — There are three main categories: Oh Wow!, Geeky, and Home Life, so if you’re just interested in one, they’re color-coded and you can ignore (or try to at least) the other stuff. If you sign up for emails, they aren’t obnoxious. The items range from ridiculous and funny to totally practical but that you probably wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

Think Geek — I definitely browse here more during the holidays than other parts of the year. My own interests are for the Star Trek-related items, but the site gives me good ideas for stocking stuffers for other people, too.

Etsy — Just looking through the newsletters they send (way too many in my opinion, so I only look at a few), helps me think outside the box. I’m not a crafty person, but I can appreciate other people being crafty. I’m planning to use this site for at least a little bit of holiday shopping as much because of the unique items on there as much as to support the individuals. At least here you know (theoretically) who made what it is you’re about to buy.

Southern Season — For the foodies on your list, check out Southern Season. There’s a physical location not far from me, and it is dangerous to walk in. There are too many yummy things to buy. I use this site a lot if I need to ship a gift basket to family in another state. The company has gift baskets already made on their site, and they’ll ship them quickly. Since I live in North Carolina, it’s fun to send a bit of the local flavor to folks out in Iowa, for instance.