I have a dear friend who has a birthday near the end of this month, and we like to exchange birthday gifts. We live far away from each other, and I think that makes it more challenging to think of gift ideas. If I were frequently at her house, or we were going out shopping or out to eat, I would constantly be collecting input: her kitchen is yellow! she likes pictures of dogs! she could use a new kitchen knife! she likes soaps that smell like treats! she mostly wears blue/purple/green! she loves caramel things! she accessorizes with scarves! she doesn’t drink coffee anymore! she likes to try new things! she loves cookies! she always picks up that cute mug but never buys it! she wears big earrings! her coin purse is boring!

But because we’re physically distant, I hear a lot about her inner thoughts and emotions, and very little about whether she drinks loose tea / is really into hand lotions / loves aqua / is always chilly / has too many notebooks / needs a new cardigan / wears stud earrings / can’t make herself spend $25 on that lipstick.

It’s okay, because we are at the stage of life where it doesn’t feel like it matters very much. I buy her some things I think/hope she might like (usually an assortment of smaller items, to hedge my bets); she does the same for me; if we fail, who really cares? We’ll donate or re-gift or whatever; and another nice thing about being physically distant is that we’re not going to notice that the picture isn’t on the wall / the vase isn’t being used / the clothing isn’t being worn / whatever. And so I consider this an entirely fun mission: find something she MIGHT like! or will at least enjoy opening!

This year I am in the mood for fresh ideas. I feel like too many years in a row I have gotten her the fun pens and the novelty sticky-notes and the book it turns out she’s already read. And YOU don’t know what she’d want any more than I would—but you’ll have a fresh batch of ideas, and also I thought this could end up being a comments section filled with ideas we ALL could use, not just for our distant friends having birthdays, but for the upcoming holidays. Just sort of GENERAL GOOD IDEAS for other people, or for ourselves. And they can be small or large, because sometimes I get her one bigger thing and sometimes I get her a collection of smaller things, and because we all probably have people at various price levels on our lists, and because we need stocking/fill-in gifts as well as main gifts.

I will mention a few things here, from things I have in various carts to consider and/or from recent orders, just to get us started:

(image from Amazon.com)

Giraffe drink stirrers. I bought these for Paul one year. They are just as whimsical/ridiculous as I’d hoped.

(image from Amazon.com)

Ponytail holders with…those bead/ball thingies. The other day we were discussing whether middle-aged women could wear scrunchies the second time they came into fashion, if those women had also worn those scrunchies the FIRST time they came into fashion, and that led me to wonder if these bobble things still existed. I AM READY TO WEAR THEM AGAIN. (I would buy them for my friend, but she has sassy short hair dyed in fun colors.)

(image from Target.com)

Meri Meri enamel hair slides. Well okay here are super cute hair clippies perfect for sassy-short-hair-dyed-in-fun-colors.

(image from Amazon.com)

Pom-pom earrings. I MEAN!!! This is stocking stuffers for six separate people right here!

(image from Amazon.com)

Vintage McCall’s Patterns notecards. I love these, but partly because I have happy memories of my mom using these patterns, and my friend does not have a good relationship with her mom, so maybe not.

(image from Amazon.com)

Flower socks. So bright and cheery!

(image from Amazon.com)

Cat sticky-notes, if I HADN’T already done too many fun sticky notes, which I have.

(image from Amazon.com)

Menopause: A Comic Treatment. This is on my OWN wish list, but I haven’t read it yet, so it seems risky to give to someone else until I have.

(image from sephora.com)

Tocca Discovery Set. I bought this for myself (If I spent $10 more on an order I’d save $10 on shipping, so it was basically FREE) (plus $10), and there was only one sample I immediately put into my “see if someone else would like this one, because I do not” pile. But I don’t know if my friend wears/likes perfume. See, that is something else I would know if we were in person more often.

(image from Target.com)

A New Day stud earrings. This is a set of three pairs of tiny, delicate stud earrings I impulse-purchased because I loved them instantly when I saw them at Target, and I had to look and look and look to make sure these were the same ones I bought, because they look so much worse when ENLARGED like this. In person the teensy circles are so tiny and delicate and sparkly! The teensy flowers are so tiny and delicate and dark! The teensy…whatever the third ones are…are so sparkly and delicate! I wear the circles and the flowers all the time! But I would never have bought them, seeing them like this. Still, she wouldn’t see them like this, she’d see them as I saw them.

(image from Target.com)

Starbucks Fall Blend coffee. All the special blends taste the same to me: fall, spring, Thanksgiving, Christmas—all the same. And I will buy them EVERY TIME. There is something so happy and heartening about using the Thanksgiving blend the week before Thanksgiving, and the spring blend when you are HOPING winter is ending and the tulips will be coming up soon. This is putting me in the mood to put together a care package type gift for my friend. With the unicorn hair clippies up above, plus maybe the stud earrings, plus the nail polish I am about to mention.

(image from Target.com)

Sally Hansen Insta-Dri nail polish in Cinna-snap. I bought this to get an order up to the $10-off-$40-of-beauty-products threshold, and I am wearing it right now and I really like it. It dried quickly enough, even with two coats, that I did not manage to scuff/nick it. It’s not as brown-red as I’d expected/imagined, more of a classic deep wine red I probably already own, but I do like it. Very nice for fall/winter.

(image from Target.com)

Suave Pink Honeysuckle travel hand sanitizer. This was another of the things I basically got for free by trying to get up to $40 of beauty stuff so I could get a $10 gift card. I am still giving everyone hand sanitizer as gifts, and I wanted to try out this scent before giving it to anyone. I like it! I don’t know if you’ll like it. I’d describe the scent as a clean/soapy/fresh floral. It’s a bit rich at $1.50 for a purse-size bottle, but nice as a fun stocking stuffer. (Hand sanitizer: a middle-aged woman’s idea of a fun stocking stuffer.)

(image from Target.com)

Burt’s Bees Ginger Lime lip balm. I don’t remember where I saw this mentioned as a highly-desirable and hard-to-find flavor, but no description could make something more irresistible to me unless it was also “limited edition,” so I bought one, and I do like it. (I also love ginger lime diet Coke, which I still have not seen since the pandemic got underway. Alas.)

(image from Target.com)

Dear little mug. This is not at ALL an expensive mug (two single dollars), but I find it charming to the point of being unexpectedly touching. (Or the Nope mug is an option, too.) I would pair it with the fall Starbucks coffee above, or with cocoa, or with tea.

(image from Amazon.com)

EuroGraphics Cupcakes puzzle. I LOVE this puzzle. I am not a person who does 1000-piece puzzles, and I don’t like DIFFICULT puzzles. But this is more the kind of puzzle where you can keep snapping in pieces at a satisfying rate, and where you can be like “Dibs on the Christmas tree cupcake!” or “I’m working on all the hearts!” or whatever. Note that the background color varies, meaning this is more like seven smaller puzzles. Plus: it looks delicious. (Similarly terrific: the doughnuts version. The background color difference is less obvious, but the dots ARE different colors and give important clues.)

(image from Amazon.com)

Wool-blend cat socks. I just ordered these for Paul’s sister, who loves cats and lives in a chilly old house. (I bought the snowflakes ones for her boyfriend and also for me, because I wear a women’s size 10-11 shoe so I usually find men’s sock sizes more comfy, and because I already have/love the more colorful ones.)

(image from decomposition.com)

Decomposition books. Oh my gosh! How does anyone CHOOSE?? I would buy these for everyone in my life if I could CHOOSE which ONES to BUY.

I went grocery shopping yesterday. They were having an issue with chicken nuggets again: almost the whole case was filled with one single brand of one single variety of chicken strips.

They had SOFTSOAP SOAP REFILLS. I have not seen those for nearly a year. They’ve had an Arm & Hammer brand refill that I’d never seen/noticed before the pandemic, but I tried it and didn’t like the scents at all (and they LINGERED ON THE SKIN), and I know that sounds a little picky, and if there’d been no other choice I would have used them and barely even complained at all, but I DID have other choices, and so I went with those instead, but they were more expensive than buying Softsoap refills, so anyway it was very happy to see them available again.

They had NAME-BRAND DISINFECTING WIPES. I have seen those only a few times in the last year. And I didn’t buy any: I have been scanning for them EVERY TIME, feeling anxious every time I didn’t find them—but when they had them, I thought, “Eh, we don’t need any.” Pandemic  Mental Weirdness.

They had lots of paper towels, enough to have a bunch of packages sitting on the floor of the aisle. Plenty of toilet paper.

The canned fruit is still weird: shelf after shelf of cranberry sauce and pineapple, maybe a few cans each of some odd varieties like Triple Cherry Fruit Cocktail, but nothing else.

Still no Grape-Nuts, but I’d found them at Target right before I lost the ability to order from Target (STILL NOT RESTORED BTW, WHAT IS THE EVERLASTING HOLD-UP HERE), and fortunately had ordered several boxes so we were all set.

Everything else seemed pretty normal. Oh: they don’t seem to have cut daffodils this year, at least not yet. Other years, they sell little packs of a dozen stems with still-closed flowers for $1.79, which makes them an amazing cheap date: I’d buy one pack each time I went grocery shopping (which used to be twice a week), taking out wilted ones as they occurred, so I’d always have a nice full bouquet in various stages of bloom. Anyway, I haven’t seen them yet this year. They did have cut tulips, but those are $6 a bunch, and also the cats chew on the leaves.

I want to tell you what I did for Galentine’s Day gifties this year! I couldn’t tell you before, because some of my friends read this blog and I didn’t want to ruin the surprise! But they were so extremely fun to put together, and I was happy with how they turned out.

Normally I feel as if most of us already have PLENTY of mugs, in fact TOO MANY mugs, and so mugs are kind of an iffy gift idea. But when I saw these mugs, I changed my mind:

(image from Target.com)

I wanted one for myself, and I REALLY DO have too many mugs, and I am at the point where I need to GET RID OF a mug if I get a new mug, so anyway that is how much I loved these heart mugs.

I put four 2-packs in my cart: there are eight women in my wine-and-appetizers group, including me, so that works out perfectly. I felt like I was really overdoing it to order in mid-January, and maybe I’d have another idea I wanted to do instead, so I thought I’d just wait until the next time I was doing a Target Pick-Up and add them to that order—BUT THEN THEY SOLD OUT FOR PICK-UP AND SOLD OUT IN THE STORE. In MID-JANUARY! So then I ordered by mail, and thank goodness I did, because later that same day they were SOLD OUT FOR MAIL ORDER!!! In, I remind you, MID-JANUARY.

And then they arrived, and one mug was broken. It wasn’t a total disaster: I still had enough for all seven of the women in my group; I just wouldn’t have a mug for me. This was very sad, especially because I WANTED to have matching mugs with all of them. Thus began a Shopping Obsession that lasted a number of days: I would check Target’s site multiple times per day, hoping the mugs would come back into stock. One day they DID!!!—and by the time I’d gotten my cart up to the minimum $35 for shipping, THE MUGS WERE OUT OF STOCK AGAIN. That was a dark day.

From then on, I kept a cart POISED AND READY TO GO, so that if the mugs ever came back again I could order IMMEDIATELY. And that day DID COME, and I ordered IMMEDIATELY—and then worried: what if they both arrived broken?? I had ONE mug to spare, but not two! I should have ordered an extra set. I will do that now. I formed another order, feeling ridiculous—AND THE MUGS WERE SOLD OUT AGAIN, AND THEY NEVER CAME BACK INTO STOCK AGAIN AFTER THAT. Happily, the two mugs I’d ordered arrived unbroken, so I had one for each of the women in my group, one for me, AND an extra, which I sent to my sister-in-law and it did not break in the mail!

So that is the story of the mugs. In the meantime, I thought about what to put IN the mugs. I started by putting in one individually-wrapped teabag each from some of the many, many kinds of tea I’ve acquired. (If I hadn’t already had all those teas, I probably would have bought a few kinds and put in a couple bags of each; I probably would have gotten the fun/yum/interesting ones like glazed lemon loaf, vanilla bean macaron, and wild sweet orange.) Then I added one packet of Swiss Miss Lucky Charms hot chocolate, one packet of cinnamon hot chocolate, and one package each of Starbucks Via instant French Roast and Italian Roast. The coffees and the cinnamon cocoa are sold in 8-packs, which was so perfect; I highly recommend forming a friend group of eight, to take advantage of this for future Galentine’s Days. The Swiss Miss was in a 6-pack, so I bought two boxes, and then I had enough for my four favorite children as well. (Actually I sent one each to my niece and nephew, and put the spare packets in the cupboard to let nature take care of it.)

(I wish I’d put one pink and one red mug in front, so it was easier to see both kinds. BYGONES.)

I put all the little drinks packets into the mugs, then put the mugs into little Valentine’s Day gift bags I’d bought on clearance last year, with a sheet of Valentine’s Day tissue paper also bought on clearance last year. Then I tucked in individual packets of cookies: Pepperidge Farm Mint Milanos and Famous Amos. And then a few Dove chocolates, just to fill in the cracks.

I was going for sort of a “hot drink and little treats”/”tea party” concept, and I was happy with how it turned out, and my only regret was not ordering MORE MUGS and doing MORE OF THESE for MORE FRIENDS. I was thinking only of my wine-and-appetizers friend group because that’s the group that’s done Galentine’s Day parties in the past—but I also have OTHER friends, and it would have been fun to drop off little gift bags at their house, too! Especially in a pandemic! Well. There is no Happy Story of Happiness I cannot find an element of regret/sorrow in, apparently.

I am so glad and grateful that Beforetimes Swistle was the kind of person who couldn’t resist buying that cute box of Christmas cards or that cute roll of wrapping paper even when technically she already had more cards and paper than she needed, because that means Pandemic Swistle did not have to go out to buy either cards or paper. I am down to the scraps of wrapping paper, but frankly probably still have enough cards for another whole year.

Thank you for all your input on gifts for medical staff—even, unexpectedly, thank you to the people who ignored the pretty specific instruction to NOT tell us what gets thrown in the trash: in normal times, I don’t want to hear that a team tosses all homemade food because they’re assuming their patients live in disgusting squalor or whatever, but IN A PANDEMIC it turns out I DO want to hear that some medical establishments have PANDEMIC rules that mean they are required to throw away food. (And the TONE of those two types of comments is so different that the making of the latter type of comment doesn’t feel like it breaks the rule against the making of the former type, and it is so pleasing to have a comments section intuitive enough to instinctively understand that.) I absolutely don’t want to spend eighty benevolent dollars on Kringles just to have the Kringles literally thrown away, and was glad to feel saved from making that potential disheartening mistake.

But…is there no better way to handle this, considering we are NOT seeing any evidence that the virus spreads by two people each taking a slice of danish an hour apart? IS that really different than two people picking up a snack-size bag of cookies an hour apart? Wouldn’t “standing around a basket of individually-wrapped items” be exactly the same as “standing around a plate of cookies,” and wouldn’t we just avoid both of those standing-around situations? And aren’t we talking about trained medical professionals who know not to touch and breathe on every portion before selecting one? Must we really THROW AWAY perfectly safe and edible food? “No one gets anything and the food is thrown into the trash” doesn’t seem like the FIRST AND ONLY solution that should occur to us. I don’t have any sort of medical degree, but I can think of two possibilities:

1. Have one trusted staff person designated to carefully wash hands and wear gloves and then divide up brought-in communal food into baggies or onto plates or whatever, so that it is now individually-portioned.

2. If for some reason that can’t work (I can’t think of any reason that can’t work), AT THE BARE MINIMUM an entire food item could be sent home with one person, and then the next entire food item could be sent home with another person. It could be done by drawing names out of a hat, and could be considered a Fun Pandemic Holiday Raffle.

Anyway. That’s kind of a lot of attitude in those paragraphs, considering how much fun I had choosing individually-portioned things, and how happy I was with what I chose:

I started with a base of individual coffee drinks: four 4-packs of canned Starbucks drinks, one pack of each flavor available: espresso & cream, espresso & cream light, black, and mocha. I considered the 4-packs of glass-bottled Starbucks drinks, which I find very satisfying (they come in more treat-like flavors than the canned drinks, and I use the empty bottles as small vases), but I felt uneasy about transporting breakable stuff / bringing glass into a hospital, so I just went with the cans.

Having four packs of drinks made me feel inclined to choose four packs of snacks. I went for a variety of types: salty Gardetto’s / Chex Mix / Bugles mix, sweet Pepperidge Farm cookie packets, sweet fudge-dipped mini Oreo packets, and hearty Caramel Cashew trail mix packets. I was fairly limited by what was available for curbside pick-up, but that kept me from getting bogged down in choices. I placed the order, went and picked it up, and brought it with us to the appointment. It all fit in two of the handled paper bags the curbside grocery store has been using, so I could write “Happy Holidays to Pediatric GI from the Thistles!” on both in Sharpie marker. I gave the bags to one of the nurses, figuring (1) she knows where food for the whole department is supposed to go, and (2) if for some reason the food CAN’T be shared department-wide, the nurses are the people we spend the most time with and have gotten to know the best, so I’d most want them to have it.

It turned out that our hospital doesn’t have a policy about non-individually-packaged food: I heard the nurses discussing an apparently impressive cookie plate a co-worker had brought in. But since they were also talking about how they were going to get through everything before it went bad, I was still very glad I’d brought individually-packaged, shelf-stable stuff: it can easily be set aside for a time of fewer cookie plates. It’s the kind of idea I may want to continue to use after the pandemic—especially since it really was fun to CHOOSE things.

Last year I wanted to bring some sort of holiday gift to the pediatric GI department where Edward gets his Remicade infusions. We are there for hours and hours each time, and it used to be every 7 weeks but now it’s every 5 weeks which is basically once a month, and it’s been years now so we’ve gotten to feel warmly about everyone there.

But I couldn’t decide what to bring. The nurses are always talking (amongst themselves, I mean, not to us, but the nurse’s station is right outside the door so we can hear them) about how they have to eat better and exercise more, and also I imagine that MOST people who bring holiday gifts would bring treats? Perhaps I am wrong. But I know Paul’s office is always just FULL of treats in December. (But probably not this year, with the pandemic.) I would love to bring treats if they’d love to have treats, but I don’t want to BURDEN them with treats. And in a pandemic there is the additional issue of whether they’d feel comfortable with food brought in, even though (1) the overwhelming evidence seems to be that food does not pose a threat, and (2) I’d be bringing something made by someone else—like treats from a bakery or grocery store.

Anyway, last year I got overwhelmed and did nothing, and felt at peace with that decision until AFTER our December appointment, when I wished I’d powered through it and done something, ANYTHING. Holiday tasks feel overwhelming beforehand and wonderful afterhand, in my experience: like, even when it’s NOT in a pandemic I always dither and fret about the mail carrier, and I always feel SO HAPPY AND GLAD after I’ve put the gift card in the mail box. So I made a note for this year to DO SOMETHING FOR THE PEDIATRIC GI DEPARTMENT.

Here are the things I’ve considered:

1. Grocery store fruit tray. For $20-25, I can get a nice big tray of assorted fruit, which should feel somewhat treat-like while still fitting into most people’s eating plans, and without adding to the possible overload of cookies/bars/etc.; I could add a container of caramel dip and a container of chocolate dip, or anything else I see sold by the fruit trays, to increase the treatness for anyone who would LIKE to increase the treatness. Downside: fruit this time of year may not be terrific and it doesn’t last long; also, I’d have to go to the grocery store to get it (I’m okay with that, but in a pandemic anything “going inside a store” has to count as a downside).

2. An order from O&H Danish Bakery. A dear friend sent me two of their Kringles, and they were SO DELICIOUS AND FUN. They’re big oval ring-shaped danish, and you cut off pieces and eat them. And they freeze gorgeously: I cut a bunch of pieces and put them in baggies in the freezer before my children could locust everything up, and I took out a piece every afternoon to have with my coffee, and it was glorious. Anyway, I could send the department a few Kringles, or there are also other holiday packages involving, say, two Kringles and two coffee cakes, things like that. Downsides: could possibly be adding to burden of too many sweets/treats; also, rather expensive. Upside: they’d be shipped, so they’d arrive as a surprise and I wouldn’t have to be there! (I don’t like the part where I’m bringing in things and people might feel they have to make a big deal about it, and in the case of our Remicade appointments different people keep coming into the room so maybe they’d ALL say something, and it’s so agonizing.)

3. An order from See’s Candies. This is another of my own favorite special treats, and I feel like I could put together a nice selection of chocolates and candies. Downsides: again, expensive and adds to potential overburden of sweets. Upside: again, SHIPPED, so I don’t have to be there; also, they keep for a fairly long time, so they wouldn’t have to be eaten at the same time as any other possible resident treats.

4. A bunch of assorted things that I can get with Drive-Up at Target: basically the pandemic care package concept. Like, what about some of those four-packs of bottles/cans of Starbucks coffee? And a big parcel of those snack-size chip bags! And some packs of festive Milano and/or Pepperidge Farm cookies! And some hand lotion! And so on. Upside: this would be super fun for me, and everything would KEEP really well in case they didn’t want it now. Downside: heavy/bulky to lug through the hospital; also, I was estimating the cost and it would be comparable to the Kringles/See’s ideas, but for something that doesn’t seem like it has the same impact.

Do you have other ideas? And I hope we can all remember that, as when discussing teacher gifts, no one likes to hear their careful and lovingly-intended ideas called “crap” or “junk” or  “a waste” or whatever, and that too much of that kind of talk makes people just give up and do nothing instead, and with bad unfestive feeling about it too. And also, we should all keep in mind that there is no single Right Answer that meets every department everywhere: for example, some departments get too many sweets and feel burdened, while others hardly get any and would greatly enjoy getting more. So if for example you are or know a nurse, perhaps you could list things your/their department would love to receive, rather than dishearteningly listing all the stuff that gets thrown in the trash immediately. And if you have brought gifts to medical staff in the past, I hope you will feel free to say what you decided on, without this cautionary paragraph making you feel self-conscious that other people will criticize it.

Follow-up!

I have turned my mind to the issue of the kids’ stockings, and I guess Paul’s and mine too, but I feel like Paul and I could have some pretty sub-par pandemic stockings and not really worry about it, whereas more than one kid has commented in the past that they almost like the stockings better than the gifts.

Normally I shop for stockings bit by bit, when I’m out and about anyway. Maybe I’m shopping with my sisters-in-law after Christmas and find some good stocking stuffers on clearance and set them aside. Maybe I’m shopping with my mom at HomeGoods and we find some fun gadget or useful little item. Maybe I find some nail polish or earrings or socks and set them aside. And I fill my own stocking by seeing little things I want while out shopping, and thinking “Yes, but do I really NEED that?,” and then thinking “OH I can get it for my STOCKING!”—and then tucking those things aside in a bag in the closet, without looking into the bag as I add each new thing—so that things I bought earlier in the year are genuine surprises. Then, closer to Christmas, I buy a whole bunch of candy and snacky things to fill in the gaps, plus useful supplies they need anyway (socks, hair elastics, new toothbrush, anything anyone puts on the shopping list during December), plus little bottles of interesting boozes for the grown-ups.

But this year I am not shopping as I normally would. I do have a few things I bought on clearance back before the pandemic started. But everything else feels WAY more difficult, because I have to THINK OF the thing and go looking for it online, rather than letting the ITEMS find ME. And I haven’t been finding things on clearance all year, as I normally would have. And searching “stocking stuffers” brings up a lot of stuff in the $20+ category which…is not how we do stockings. And I think this is going to end up meaning that this year’s stockings will be heavier on candy/snacks, lighter on everything else.

Here’s what I’ve been finding online, in addition to what I’m already considering from the post about Paul’s sister’s stocking box:

Holiday Fruit Snacks:

(image from Target.com)

(or if you need more, there’s a 28-pack box). It’s rare to find something packaged with the same number of items as I have children! I bought two 5-count boxes, because the kids all like fruit snacks; if I’d seen the 28-count box, I probably would have ordered that instead BUT OH WELL. [These have arrived, and it is only 1/2 ounce per fruit-snack packet, so now I definitely wish I’d ordered the 28-count. I might order those TOO.]

Cute hot chocolate:

(image from Target.com)

Interesting hot chocolate:

(image from Target.com)

Duke Cannon soap for Paul:

(image from Target.com)

These giant bars are his favorite soap. They also have Big Ass Lump of Coal and Frothy the Beerman.

Rice Krispies treats:

(image from Target.com)

I panicked and bought five of these, then realized I could have bought a 32-count box of minis for much less money per ounce.

Razors for the college boys: disposables for Rob and refills for William.

(image from Target.com)

Shaving cream for the college boys:

(image from Target.com)

New hair brushes for Henry and Rob, because theirs are gross:

(image from Target.com)

Hair elastics for Rob, Elizabeth, Henry, and me:

(image from Target.com)

Scrunchies for Elizabeth:

(image from Target.com)

If you have a number of people who would enjoy scrunchies, may I recommend this bizarrely inexpensive set of 40, which sells in the $8-10ish range?

(image from Amazon.com)

Elizabeth wanted to buy them with her own money a year or two ago, and I was all, “Oh, honey, at that price those are not going to be any good”—and I was completely wrong, and Amazon tells me I have bought them FIVE TIMES now (they’re great to donate for fundraisers/auctions).

Similarly, this surprisingly inexpensive set of pom-poms to clip onto backpacks:

(image from Amazon.com)

You can put some in each stocking and let people trade colors.

I thought Elizabeth might like to try this hair-drying tee that may be no better than the actual t-shirts she’s been using:

(image from Amazon.com)

These dumb over-priced M&Ms tubes I buy anyway because the kids inexplicably love them, and now it’s been so many years it’s become Tradition:

(image from Target.com)

Ring pops:

(image from Target.com)

My favorite kind of Junior Mints, I buy a dozen boxes each Christmas just for me:

(image from Target.com)

Candy cane Tic Tacs:

(image from Target.com)

Chocolate oranges:

(image from Target.com)

Socks (last year Rob commented, “I can tell I’m getting to the boring grown-up stage of life, because I am genuinely glad to see these!”)

(image from Target.com)

(image from Target.com)

(image from Target.com)

(image from Target.com)

(image from Amazon.com)

Gum:

(image from Target.com)

(image from Target.com)

(image from Target.com)

This hand soap for Paul, who loves lemony stuff:

(image from Target.com)

Ticonderoga pencils (thanks Alyson for the reminder!): black for Rob and William, metallic for Elizabeth and Edward and Henry, and NOIR HOLOGRAPHIC for Paul.

(image from Amazon.com)

A metal 2-tablespoon measuring spoon for Paul, who every morning uses the 1-tablespoon measure twice for peanut butter and has already broken two plastic tablespoon handles:

(image from Amazon.com)

Bonds of London Pear Drops. I don’t know who was eating these online but SOMEONE was, and I wanted to try them, so I ordered a bag for my stocking. I am appalled to see that “pear drops” (I love pear-flavored things) are apparently also BANANA-flavored (I am…not fond of banana-flavored things), which I didn’t notice until after I ordered. I also bought the sherbet lemons for Paul, so perhaps I will just…switch bags.

(image from Amazon.com)

According to Amazon, I have bought these Kikkerland pens 15 times, and that doesn’t even tell you how many packs I bought each time. They are my favorites and my sister-in-law’s favorites, so I buy some for our stockings each year when they’re in the $6-7ish range.

(image from Amazon.com)

I don’t know where all the gloves go, so I buy inexpensive ones for the stockings every year (or, better yet, the year before on clearance).

(image from Target.com)

(image from Target.com)

And Paul’s sister had these fingerless gloves on her wish list:

(image from Amazon.com)

These paper glasses are so odd, and I don’t know how they work, but this is our third Christmas playing with them and the kids exclaimed upon seeing them come out of a box. They turn lights into pictures, I don’t know how. So if you wear the “snowman” pair, and you look at Christmas lights, you will see a little snowman in place of each Christmas light. And if you look out the window and a car is driving by, you will see snowmen where the headlights are. It is BIZARRE, and well worth the price.

(image from Amazon.com)

Glitter Decorate-a-Christmas-Tree mini Dover book (kids are too old for it; this is for me):

(image from Amazon.com)

Pepperidge Farm Chessman cookies:

(image from Target.com)

I had some of these leftover from doing care packages for grown-ups, and I put them into the kids’ stockings. Henry surprised me by REMEMBERING them the next Christmas, mentioning in December that he hoped there would be Chessman cookies in the stockings again. They ARE yummier than one would expect. And there’s also Milano snack-packs, if you prefer a little chocolate.

Oreo dippers:

(image from Target.com)

I’ve been getting these for stockings since Rob was a toddler. I like to get the big pack so I have enough for my niece and nephew and for at least some of the grown-ups, but if you don’t need as many they’re also sold in a 6-pack. And there are pretzel-and-cheese-dip, breadstick-and-cheese-dip, and crackers-and-cheese-dip versions, if you prefer savory: sometimes stockings get kind of overfull of sweet.

Speaking of which: Pringles.

(image from Target.com)

And Chex Mix.

(image from Target.com)

Trail mix packets:

(image from Target.com)

Caramel Cashew is a favorite, but they also have Monster, Peanut Butter Monster, Cashew Cranberry Almond, Omega 3 Walnut, and Simply Trail.

If you know someone doing keto and you don’t mind spending more money than you’d expect, there are some pretty yummy Quest bars and cookies and snack-size bags of chips sold individually for about $2 each (I KNOW) at my grocery store. My own favorites are the chocolate-chip cookie dough bar, the double chocolate cookie, and the nacho tortilla chips. The past couple of years, Target has had some seasonally-flavored Quest items in the stocking-stuffer section: a peppermint-bark flavored Quest bar, a snickerdoodle/gingerbread flavored Quest cookie, things like that; I’m not seeing those on the site, but they might have them in the store. I’m getting these Quest Peanut Butter Cups for my own stocking, because I have been longing to try them and they’ve only just become available for shipping:

(image from Target.com)

(I will of course be eating ABSOLUTELY NOT KETO AT ALL for Christmas, but it’s nice to have a “fun” “treat” to look forward to in the sad aftermath.)

Paul likes the O’Keeffe’s brand, so I usually get him hand cream (Target) (Amazon) and/or lip balm (Target) (Amazon) for his stocking.

(image from Amazon.com)

(image from Amazon.com)

And you could get the nice foot cream (Target) (Amazon) Nicole recommends, for your own stocking. (I want to try the Night Treatment.)

(image from Amazon.com)

(image from Target.com)

I got a couple packs of these holiday Chapsticks last year and distributed them among the stockings.

(image from Target.com)

And I got myself an adorably wee little mini-Vaseline in creme brulee flavor, which I can still find at my grocery store but I’m having trouble finding online. Here it is in a 3-pack of flavors from Amazon. Or there’s a cocoa-butter two-pack or single. Or a rosy-lips single or two-pack.

(image from Target.com)

Mini staplers are the kind of thing I prefer to get on clearance:

(image from Target.com)

Fundraising/political t-shirts. These are on one hand WAY too expensive for stockings. But what happens is that the kid feels neutrally-positive about having the shirt (not strongly enough to put it on their wish list, but generally positive toward the organization/politician), and I feel high-positive about supporting the organization/politician, so I buy the shirts (or get them free with a donation), and I will put the shirt in someone’s stocking. Or one year, ACLU had their basic tee for $10, so I bought one for each of the three kids who were mildly interested in having one. It isn’t so much a stocking gift as something I would have bought them anyway if they’d wanted it, and it takes up a nice amount of space in the stocking.

(image from HRC.org)