Also see our other holiday gift guides:
- Hostess gifts with the mostest
- Something for everyone
- For Chicago lovers
- Personalize it!
- Custom photo gifts
- The gifts that seem inevitable for the 2025 holiday season (a work in progress)
- Market update: Everything you need to know about those fast-selling LED infinity lights
Bah humbug is a foreign language to most gift givers. Still, we acknowledge that some of the less festive among us need a nudge to embrace the season.
Here are a few assorted ideas that can do the trick as the season enters its official start with Thanksgiving Day.
Dress the part
The holidays give everyone the permission to break out a bit—to celebrate by wearing a little more flash than they ordinarily would. Nobody gets extra candy canes for being subtle this time of year.
Here are a few fashion options to make your intended look like a million dollars while causing you to spend considerably less than that. Even though these pieces are well reviewed costume jewelry, what may seem like a casual gift now has the potential to become rooted in a family tradition. Affection for these—and the practice of breaking them out every year—will create a sweet memory that includes you as the gift giver.
Check out these sparkly Santa hat earrings. Half an inch wide and 1.18 inch high and weighing 4 grams, they’re small but they make a big statement. They’re made of an alloy metal base with 14K silver plating, enamel and crystal rhinestones. Hypoallergenic and nickel-free.
These holiday dangle drop earrings weigh little more than 1 ounce. They’re hypoallergenic, nickel-free and lead-free—these rhinestone bulbs could burn all day and all night.
Less overstated is this Kendra Scott 14K gold-plated pendant with a green quartzite tree. It’s a 14-inch chain with a 4-inch extender and lobster clasp.
Call it a brooch comeback
Brooches are making a comeback—and not just for women but for men too. Have you seen Derek Hough’s mad accessorizing on Dancing with the Stars or Robert Downey Jr., Pharrell Williams, Colman Domingo?
For example, this 2.76 x 2.76 x 1.18 inch, 1.06 ounce rhinestone lion brooch would look fearsome on a lapel year-round.
Back to the holidays, we’d expect some fawning over this Betsey Johnson fawn brooch. Made of metal, glass crystal, imitation pearl and plastic, it measures 1.75 inches long and 1.5 inches wide.
Over the years, worry over pins damaging fabric has kept some from fully showcasing their brooches.
Worry no more thanks to these brooch converters—just slip the brooch pin through the hollow tube on the magnetic piece. The magnet holding the pin and another magnet positioned on the inside of the garment are then what holds the brooch in place. Yay!
The diameter of the brooch converter is 0.6 inches, which is small and light. Its size, in fact, will mean that it will work for most but not all pins.
And here’s an idea for converting a brooch to a pendant.
Holiday art
The holidays can be disruptive—moving the furniture to accommodate the tree may be just the start of rearranging living quarters. Could it also include hanging a holiday-only canvas, or at least creating space to prop it up somewhere?
Canvases with optic fiber and LED lights built in to twinkle have been getting better and better over the last few years. They’ve diversified their scenes to include a mix of secular (Santa et al) and religious, the canvases are getting bigger in size, and they’ve added a timer capability. The time on this 28×20 wintry scene can be set for six hours. A light canvas on a wall can create a surprise, stunning effect.
Holiday lights
For something less disruptive, propose switching out a nightlight. This snowmen couple roasting marshmallows over a flickering flame is pretty darn cute.
We love lots of twinkling candles and have made the transition to battery-operated votives for all but our special candles. But who wants to have to turn them on and off?
Your recipients won’t need to, with the gift of these tea lights, which can be timed for 2/4/6/8 hours. They’re available in three colors: warm white light, white shell; pure white light, white shell; and warm white light. The included remote controls them.
Holiday table
Help your intended set a festive table with these premium paper napkins from the Rosanne Beck collection. They’re 8.5 x 4.5 inches folded and come 16 to a pack.
Holiday harmonies
There will be a time to give Mariah a rest. When that time comes, introduce your recipients to the Greatest Gift Christmas collection from a sibling trio called Life in 3D.
Known for their pure three-part harmonies, they’ve established a sizable following online. While they cover a wide variety of songs, their versions of the Christmas classics—see this YouTube video of O Holy Night, for example—are both timeless and fresh.
You can buy the CD from their site for $15, an autographed copy for $25.
For recharging
We’re rushing into a season known for joy and merriment…and packed schedules. Our final recommendation is a gift of self-care to be sure your intended doesn’t miss a beat.
Liquid I.V. is your intended’s best protection against getting worn down. Packaged in single serving packets of powder meant to be poured in 16 ounces of water, the drink provides an optimized ratio of electrolytes and clinically tested nutrients—a boost, in other words, when it’s most needed.
It’s available in multiple fruit flavors, including our favorite popsicle firecracker, and in sugar-free form, too.