The 2024 Kottke Holiday Gift Guide

Since 2013, I’ve done a holiday gift guide that’s basically a curated roundup of stuff from the best gift guides I can find. I always do it a little bit differently from year to year, and this year I’m going with a simple list. It’s gonna be dense…let’s go!

1. Charitable giving. If you can, give cash to your local food bank. Volunteer. Start with GiveWell’s list of “high-impact, cost-effective charities”. Here are Vox’s 10 guidelines for giving effectively. I personally give to the National Network of Abortion Funds.

2. The Kid Should See This Gift Guide is the GOAT for kids’ gifts. Every dang year they hit it out of the park. What caught my eye this year: Wyrmspan is a dragon-themed “sequel” to Wingspan by Elizabeth Hargrave; Yoto Player Bluetooth Speaker for Kids (I have friend who swear by these for their kids); Cloudspotting for Beginners (Bookshop); and the Thames & Kosmos Roller Coaster Engineering STEM Kit (omg, I would have loved loved loved this as a kid…and this Nat Geo magnetic marble run). [via The Kid Should See This Gift Guide]

3. You can give the gift of Kottke! *cringe* There’s The Kottke Hypertext Tee and The Process Tee in light & dark colors. There are kottke.org gift memberships as well starting at $30/yr; check the FAQ on the membership page for more options and details.

4. Wahhhhh, I love these spring bowls & sun bowls from Studio Arhoj. Oh and The Complete Calvin and Hobbes (Bookshop) and The Complete Far Side (Bookshop). [via The Atlantic’s 2024 Gift Guide]

5. Twelve South AirFly Duo is a Bluetooth transmitter that you can plug into the jack on your seatback TV on the airplane and then use your Bluetooth headphones to listen to your movie. I have one of these; it works great. Apple AirTags are essential travel infrastructure these days. Oooh, there’s a new addition to the Sushi Go! family of games: Spin Some for Dim Sum. I reget to admit I am a tiny bit curious about Meta’s Ray-Ban Smart Glasses. [via The Verge’s 2024 holiday gift guide]

6. You know her, you love her: Edith Zimmerman. Her Etsy shop is chock full of prints, cards, and even original watercolor paintings. Go get ‘em.

7. Verbatim from last year: You’re probably getting tired of me talking about the 2nd-gen Apple AirPods Pro but I use mine every day and they are great. Almost every book I read, I read on the Kindle Paperwhite — it’s light, waterproof, and very travel-friendly. (Though I am still eyeing the Colorsoft Kindle.)

8. You’ve still got a chance to buy the fine-art edition of Craig Mod’s Things Become Other Things before it sells out forever. I just finished reading it a few days ago and I regret to inform you that it is infuriatingly good, the bastard.

9. Tinned fish! I have my eye on the Fishwife Smoky Trio 3-Pack (Smoked Rainbow Trout, Smoked Salmon, Smoked Mackerel). [via The Amateur Gourmet Gift Guide 2024]

10. Uniqlo’s HEATTECH Ultra Warm T-Shirt is one of the warmest and comfiest shirts I’ve ever owned. I picked one up when I was in NYC a couple of months ago and I loved it so much I just ordered two more the other day. On sale right now for $20! Men’s. Women’s.

11. Dozens of puzzles of New Yorker covers. [via Cup of Jo’s Best Gifts for Dads]

12. A handmade crokinole board from Muzzies. And a budget-friendly option. (If you’re wondering what crokinole is.)

14. {I asked Edith for a gift suggestion and here’s what she sent me. Thanks, Edith! -j} I’d like to recommend these cute, fleece-lined “Antura” baby booties from Reima. I felt a little silly getting them for my first daughter (surely there’s a hand-me-down option?), but they’re still going strong on baby no. 2, they stay put, we get compliments wherever we go, and they work well, warmth-wise. They don’t seem to be available in the “Cinnamon” color I ordered in 2022, but Red Violet and Navy are great, too.

15. My friend Caroline hiked Vermont’s Long Trail this summer and compiled a small list of outdoors supplies for the gift guide: ThermoDrop Zipper-Pull Thermometer, Opinel wood-handled stainless steel folding knives, Kahtoola MICROspikes, and Smartwool’s Thermal Merino Reversible Cuffed Beanie. And the Cotopaxi Bataan fanny pack, about which she said: “The MVP of my hiking trip. No more fiddling around with side pockets or opening your pack any time you need a snack, to find your your phone or to look at the map.”

16. My friends at Colossal recently-ish reopened their shop and I love these Cyanometer Postcards (for measuring the blueness of the sky and the orangeness of the sunset). [via The Colossal Gift Guide]

17. I like getting The Giant Jam Sandwich (Bookshop) as a gift for the little readers in my life. [via The Strategist’s What’s Your Go-to Book to Gift Little Kids?]

18. Come on, someone has to buy this 55-gallon drum of personal lubricant this year. We need this to save 2024.

19. Richard Scarry-themed temporary tattoos from Tattly. Lowly Worm, Huckle Cat, the Apple Car, Goldbug, and many more of your favorites.

20. My daughter got me this jar of truffle butter as a gift last year and it’s so good (and it lasts forever in the fridge). Perfect for putting into white, creamy pasta sauces or as a finishing element for a grilled cheese. (Also I just learned you can buy white truffles on Amazon but I wouldn’t?)

21. kottke.org guest editor Aaron Cohen owns a pair of ice cream shops in the Boston area and they take their merch very seriously. So many t-shirts! Oh and you can find pints of Gracie’s ice cream all over the Boston metro area…as far away as Concord and Beverly.

22. Did you know that you can commission a portrait from one of the artists belonging to the Royal Society of Portrait Painters?

23. Pal Austin Kleon’s book, Keep Going: 10 Ways to Stay Creative in Good Times and Bad (Bookshop), seems like a good thing to be reading these days. [via The 2024 Kleon Studios Gift Guide]

24. I love this one: gift audiobooks from Libro.fm. “You choose the credit bundle, your gift recipient picks their own audiobooks, and your local bookstore is supported by your purchase!” Two credits (for two books) for $30, 3 for $45, 6 for $90, etc.

25. A levitating Moon lamp, anyone? Or a Bluetooth cassette player? [via the New Yorker’s Little Treats Galore: A Holiday Gift Guide]

26. Pal Robin Sloan and his partner Kathryn Tomajan run a tiny olive oil producer called Fat Gold. This year they’re offering a Super Fresh Gift Set of olive oil produced just a few months ago. I can also recommend Sloan’s latest novel, Moonbound (Bookshop) — I’m eagerly awaiting the second installment. [via Robin’s 2024 gift guide]

27. Another great gift list for kids’ stuff: Purdue University’s 2024 Engineering Gift Guide. Some of their picks: Mochi Robotics Kit: Screenless Coding for Ages 3-9; Snap Circuits “Arcade” Electronics Exploration Kit; and Smartivity’s Robotic Mechanical Hand. [via Purdue University’s 2024 Engineering Gift Guide]

28. Do you want a tiny little TV with a miniature remote? You can load your own videos on here for some reason… What about Teenage Engineering’s completely unhinged medieval sampler, drum machine and sequencer? [via Gizmodo’s Best Tech Gifts of 2024]

29. Food/kitchen things that I can vouch for: Xi’an Famous Foods meal kits, pastrami from Katz’s Delicatessen, Ernest Wright’s kitchen scissors, the Ooni Volt electric pizza oven, Headley & Bennett’s crossback apron, and this Zojirushi rice cooker (Neuro Fuzzy!).

30. Also Verbatim from last year: Let’s destigmatize the gift card: there is no shame in not knowing what to get someone for a gift, even if you know them really well. This is actually the gift of getting someone exactly what they want. There’s the obvious Amazon gift card but you can also get cards for Apple (use it for Fitness+ or Apple TV+?), Audible, Fortnite, Snapchat, Airbnb, Disney+, Spotify, Netflix, and Roblox.

31. Sometimes people ask me where to buy art online and I always direct them to 20x200. For instance, just take a look at Harold Fisk’s Mississippi River meander maps.

32. Speed round of friends and readers of the site who sell cool shit: Simplebits (shirts, fonts, and more), Wondermade marshmallows, Hella Cocktail Co. (bitters, mixers, canned margs), This is a MomBod, Jodi Ettenberg’s Legal Nomads shop (food art, totes, shirts) and gluten free translation cards and celiac travel guides, Yen Ha (prints), Moss & Fog, Spoon & Tamago, Fitz (custom fitted eyeglasses), and Field Notes. (to be continued…)

33. Stuff from last year’s guide that still slaps: Keap Wood Cabin candle (had this burning today…I love the smell), Crayola Palm-Grip Crayons, this cute whale butter dish, Darn Tough socks, leather floppy disk wallet, and Analogue Pocket (actually in stock).

34. Thing that I want: Insta360 GO 3S. It’s a teeny 4K camera that you can magnet-attach to your shirt and record yourself, say, downhilling on your mountain bike.

35. Teens are impossible to shop for. The Strategist always has good gift guides: The Best Gifts for Teenage Girls, According to Teenage Girls; The Best Gifts for Teenage Boys, According to Teenage Boys. The Spikeball set, disco ball, and this Brooklinen robe look promising. And I can recommend the tortilla blanket for ages 0 to 120…everyone loves this thing.

36. I asked readers for gift suggestions and IMO the resulting thread is even better than the gift guide I put together. There’s some great stuff here: wooden puzzles; colorful, design-y charging stands for Apple things; leather bound notebooks; box cutters; and this vintage shop on Etsy. Go check out the rest here.

37. More friends and readers of the site who sell cool shit! Pink Tiger Games (“sweet, kind” tabletop games), Storyworth (keepsake books), Christoph Niemann (prints & books), Noah Kalina (photographic prints & books), Jessica Hische (prints, apparel, fonts, etc.), Mike Monteiro (paintings), Cotton Bureau (t-shirts and more),

38. Surprisingly popular item from last year’s gift guide: this Japanese nail clipper. (This tracks because when you finally adult up and buy a quality nail clipper, the shame you feel at wasting so much time on a shitty nail clipper is real.)

39. No surprise that Roxane Gay’s gift guide includes some bangers: CC40 (Criterion Collection 40th anniversary box set that includes 40 films like Tokyo Story, Do the Right Thing, Cléo from 5 to 7), vintage menu art, the Bird Buddy bird feeder, and Haptic Labs’ Constellation Quilt.

40. Gift guide lightning round: Helen Rosner’s food-focused list for the New Yorker, Cup of Jo’s 2024 holiday gift guide, 48 Homemade Food Gifts for the Holidays, The Best Bookish Gifts Under $30, Lenny’s Newsletter holiday gift guide 2024, Every Holiday Gift Guide From the Strategist (So Far), and Noah Kalina’s Is this a gift guide?

41. Time Since Launch is a unique timepiece — you pull the pin to start the timer and it keeps counting…for up to 2,738 years.

{Dec 11: Added some new items to the list below…}

42. I love the minimalist look of these Best Kind sweatshirts.

43. Quickly, some books! The Backyard Bird Chronicles written & illustrated by Amy Tan (The Joy Luck Club), Jessica Hische’s My First Book of Fancy Letters, James by Percival Everett, My Favorite Thing Is Monsters Book Two by Emil Ferris, Samatha Harvey’s Orbital, The Observer’s Guide to Japanese Vending Machines, Atlas Obscura: Wild Life: An Explorer’s Guide to the World’s Living Wonders, and The Serviceberry: Abundance and Reciprocity in the Natural World by Robin Wall Kimmerer.

44. Naomi Kritzer’s Gifts for People You Hate 2024. Many years ago, a work colleague and her husband received a turtle as a wedding gift. A turtle.

45. A few things that didn’t quite fit elsewhere: Meow Wolf has some weird stuff; 2025 Crossword Calendar; and prints of ship movements from Beautiful Public Data.

This is a living document — I’ll be updating this list with more stuff over the next few days, and I’ll let you know when to check back! To be continued…

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