Gift Guide #3: Your Husband Who Makes Chicken Parm and Rubs Your Shoulders (Almost) Every Time You Ask.

My husband and I get each other a voucher for workshops/experiences. E.g one year I booked him on a freediving course and he booked me into a mixology class (which really paid him dividends during lockdown! 5pm happy hour each night haha!) Its so fun to learn something new and to hear about what they have learnt!

I love the gift guides! I always find great ideas when I’m in a rut. I was keeping my eye out for them all month haha

I would LOVE to see a gift guide post where the amazing CoJ readers who own small businesses could comment/link to their shop!

The last few years we have a Gift Giving Tradition that includes a book giving on Christmas eve (this idea came from a post on CoJ) and a Making Gift. With the making gift we pull one of hour names out of a hat then you make a Gift for that person. It is so much fun and the best part of our Christmas now. It has been cute seeing the kids grow and their making skills grow too. My youngest when we started would find a collection of things a d wrap them up. We have had drawings, chocolate freckles, Christmas crackers filled with homemade chocolate, beaded necklaces, lip scrubs, books of poems and drawings. It is just the loveliest thing. The making part is fun too because people sneak off or have to find ways to make their gift in secret. Very cute.

Socks are always great! My mom has been getting us Smartwool socks for almost a decade and they are the perfect gift because they are A. great socks and B. a little more expensive than I would typically get for myself. Another great brand is Darn Tough – made in Vermont just a few miles up the road from me!

For your outdoorsy, worker type, Vermont Glove is a family-owned local factory in my town of Randolph, VT that makes the BEST gloves. https://vermontglove.com/collections/all-products

Finally, I bought this book for a friend and it’s hysterical. “Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village.” https://bookshop.org/books/your-guide-to-not-getting-murdered-in-a-quaint-english-village/9781984859624

Catching wind of and getting tickets to cool events is a skill of mine and a weakness of my husband’s, so I usually keep my eyes peeled for concerts he would love to see and then reveal on Christmas, his next birthday, or whatever that hey, we’ve got this thing coming up! Other than that, it’s all perishables like socks and mixed nuts over here. He’s not into objects that hang around.

Oh, and, magazines are a fun gift for all ages! There is a magazine for every age (including little ones) and most interests! And who doesn’t love getting non-boring, non-bills mail? Oh, and FYI, for those who gift or read ‘Empire of Pain’, NPR did a week long series of interviews with the author if you want to listen and get additional perspective.

THANK YOU for the blanket idea! This will be the perfect birthday gift for my sister and her husband (both born in December) for them to use with their active three boys. They are very difficult to buy for but this will fit the bill. Thanks again!

A few more culinary gifts for chef-type partners! My husband has deeply appreciated Georgia Olive Farms oils, which are USA-made, super tasty, and a fun change from California olive oils. http://georgiaolivefarms.com/gof/store/ He’s also loved Burlap & Barrel Spices and Diaspora Spice Co. Both work with small farmers and do cool sourcing on single-origin spices. ALSO crispy chili oil from an Asian supermarket is a big hit, and you can never have too much! Same with a fun assortment of frozen dumplings and buns.

And for the partner who “just buys themselves things online,” I’ve had luck preemptively ordering a batch of stuff from one of those beloved online stores, and my husband has been truly delighted and amazed by this even though it seems so obvious? But he’ll say softly and appreciatively, “oh I was eyeing this on their site the other week….” or something along those lines. And then he’ll tell other people too, “oh this hat is the one my wife got me, though!” (When he has like 7 hats from the same company.)

LOL because my husband already has the Frankie’s olive oil, the Empire of Pain book, a New Yorker subscription, and Heattech socks — all of which are great!

Amazing suggestions, I too have a minimalist husband that just buys what he wants. He does trust me to buy him all his clothes (yay!), this year he asked for graphic tshirt that “don’t make me look like a teenager”.. any suggestions? I am dying here :p

I am all for ‘gifts’ for my husband that I also get to enjoy. Two recent recs: the Basil Shower Gel from Le Labo (maybe the best smelling body wash of all time, no biggie) and the Woodsmoke candle from Brooklyn Candle Studio.

As the wife of a minimalist who buys everything himself that he needs and doesn’t believe in “put it on your Christmas list and wait,” I can say that memberships and registrations to events (like a running program) go over very well. Everyone has at least one hobby/area of interest, and there’s a club for really everything out there. My husband expressed interest in beekeeping a few years ago, so I got him a one-year membership to the local beekeeping club (which came with free entry to events). Community college classes are an option too. I was gifted a community college photography class that was excellent. Hubbie and I live in a 650 sq ft apartment, so gifts like these are great for space issues, too!

This is my first holiday with my S.O. and I am having the most fun finding him things. Most proud of the hairless cat ornament referencing an inside joke from our third date. It’s so hideous. I died laughing when I opened the package.

My husband is also a tricky minimalist. One of last year’s hits was Flatiron Pepper Co. red pepper flakes. He puts ’em on everything and their mixes really deliver the heat. I’ve also taken to getting fancy salts – local Spice shop sells ’em in $5 bags in a bunch of flavors.

Thank you for these lists! I look forward to them every year! And for the first time ever I’ve solved my hard to buy for husbands present early! Going to get marshmallow roasting sticks, a Rumpl blanket, and my kids are making fire starters. Bring on the snuggly fires!

Wireless charger such a great idea – with husband and 3 teen boys we can never have enough chargers in this house and that one actually looks stylish too!
Thank you for these gift guides, so many great ideas and I appreciate all your hard work. Any chance of a teenagers guide? I find them the hardest to buy gifts for

Love these gift guides and I’m sure Empire of Pain is a good read, but wondering if you might rethink the phrasing. Saying “whose reputation was destroyed by Oxy Contin” makes it sound like it was a rumour or something, whereas really they used illegal marketing to increase their sales of a drug they knew was was causing harm and death. Let’s not make it sound like they were the passive victims!

Dear God Joanna how do you take all the negativity in stride and respond with such grace to all the Captain Correction types? Always in awe.

My husband is THE most difficult person to shop for, and unfortunately I really doubt he’d go for any of the suggestions on this list — he has no sweet tooth to speak of, would rather eat in than go out any day of the week, doesn’t enjoy cooking, bought ME the wireless charger several Christmases back, prefers graphic novels to straight-up novels, thinks curdoroy anything should be left firmly in the 70s/90s, and isn’t into the outdoors due to our incredibly humid/hot tropical climate. His main passions are soccer (specifically the English Premier League), WWII history, and elaborate Lego sets, but whatever he really wants he would normally have ordered online for himself. Which leaves me constantly stumped and usually frantically scanning a Lego store for whatever looks cool the month before Christmas!

wow, that cake is a beauty

My MIL got me a rumpl blanket last year and a tandem camp chair and it has been the best for cozy camping trips, lying on the beach, or even just sitting on the porch. I also used it as an extra warm layer for a camping trip and it worked like a charm.

I got my husband this “as per my previous email” mug for father’s day and he truly loves to drink from it while on zoom calls: https://meriwether.love/products/per-my-previous-email-ceramic-coffee-mug

Just noticed 25% off the outdoor blanket at the Rumpl website!

Too many Amazon links. You could help a lot of small businesses. I’m blown away you’d link a book to them.