🎅 2025 Holiday Gift Guide

This is my fifth year making a holiday gift guide. I’ve scoured the internet to find a bunch of stuff I find interesting. No affiliate links were used in the making of this post, and I try not to link to Amazon. Like every year, I’m grouping items into categories.

Tech

Tech doesn’t have to be a distraction. The Busy Bar is a focus timer meant to keep you on task. Likewise, the Minimal Phone is a simplified, distraction-free smartphone. Speaking of phones, convert an Apple Watch into a handheld phone with this case from Elrow. This tiny ereader magnetizes to the back of any phone, making it the most portable handheld reading device. If you like bicycles, Clip turns any regular bike into an ebike. For safer riding, check out the world’s loudest cycle horn. I have two subscription recommendations. The first is to The Verge for all your technology news. The second is for Kagi, a search engine for the small web.

Cooking

Every year, a plethora of good cookbooks are published. 2025 was no different. Scandanavia: Recipes and Ingredients, Homemade Ramen, and What Goes With What all caught my eye. For the bread baker, King Arthur sells a useful little sourdough crock. Milk Street sells a knife designed to be the perfect vegetable prep tool. Toiro Kitchen makes a gorgeous double-lidded rice cooker. To add authentic Japanese flavors to your cooking, check out the Cabi Trio sold by Big Night. The kit includes sweet yuzu vinegar, dashi soy sauce, and sansho peppercorn miso.

Fun and Games

Tesa Collective is a worker owned tabletop game publisher of titles such as Space Cats Fight Fascism and STRIKE! The Game of Worker Rebellion. I, like many people, play a slate of daily mini-games. Now, many of those games come in book form. Tom Scott published a book of lateral thinking puzzles that can be enjoyed with friends. Host of Jeopardy Ken Jennings published the complete collection of Kennections puzzles. The New York Times published a book called Puzzle Mania! featuring mini-games like Wordle and Connections. My last fun suggestion is a subscription to America’s finest journalistic institution, The Onion.

Kids

Little explorers will love these Daniel Tiger patches to celebrate outdoor achievements. Maker Girl and Professor Smarts is a graphic novel full of STEM projects for kids to complete at home. Take building blocks to the next level with Blockitecture architectural building sets. Play Tab is a sensory toy made from magnetic tiles that can be swapped out and around for each other. Explore Science is a new release from DK Publishing. The book is full of maps, diagrams, and information designed to explain the world through science. Tattly makes temporary tattoos for everyone, including these tattoos inspired by Richary Scarry illustrations.

Art and Creativity

For the burgeoning artist, JetPens put together a sketch starter kit which includes a notebook, pens, pencils, and pencil accessories. For those who prefer writing to drawing, check out these oddly-shaped notebooks sure to inspire. Or maybe you want something a little more structured, like the Inventor’s Logbook from the Los Angeles Public Library. Art fans rejoice, the Art Institute of Chicago sells a wicked shirt of Munch’s The Scream. Bauhaus fans will enjoy this Anni Albers rug. Speaking of rugs, here’s a startup from Afghanistan that allows you to design your own hand-knotted rug. Interested in art history but don’t know where to start? Check out the book Great Art Explained. Any cinephiles in your life? AMC sells a monthly movie theater membership. For the arthouse lover, Mubi curates a carefully crafted collection of auteur-created films.

Pittsburgh

I can’t forget about my fellow Yinzers. The Heinz History Center has a fantastic store where you can buy this Pittsburgh-themed tea towel, a bus sinkhole magnet, pickle earrings, and much more. Commemorate the Riverhounds’ amazing season by purchasing a USL Championship hat. Or support Pittsburgh’s newest sports team with Riveters merch. Anyone can track their visits to PA state parks and forests with this 135-page passport book. Support our libraries with Free to the People merch. Pittsburgh is a city full of character. Part of that character comes from the massive public stairway network explored in this book.

And there you have it! If you want more, remember to check out previous years’ guides. Or check out this list of gift guides from thoughtful internet people. Thanks for reading!

The DeckSettings app is now available on the iOS App Store, giving everyone a chance to easily search for #SteamDeck settings of their favorite games on their phones, and there have been some nice, SteamDeckHQ friendly changes:

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A beautifully illustrated, harrowing true story…

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This is kinda nice. Because #Obsidian Bases and Canvas files have a well-documented specification behind them, they're formats that #LLMs (like #Claude) can understand.

As I'm working through some ideas with Claude, this has allowed me to have it generate a representation of what we've been working on in Obsidian Canvas format as an artifact.

All I had to do was save it to my vault as a .canvas file and open it up. The result was 90% there — just had to tweak some sizing of elements. Handy.