The Turtleneck Season Guide to Gift Guides
Plus some gift recommendations of my own
Holiday gift guide season is upon us! For those of you who are not as overly online as myself, this is the time of year when influencers of various ilk (from the product testers at The Strategist at New York Magazine to someone named Tanya Foster, whose name came up when I googled “influencer + holiday gift guide”) collate their favorite products and sort them into gift recommendations for various categories of recipients or price points. Think “Oprah’s Favorite Things,” but now anyone on the Internet can be an Oprah identifying her favorite things to her own niche little audience.
Gift guides are one of my favorite gifts of the holiday season. Do I actually use them for help deciding what to gift loved ones? Rarely! Do I more generally love to click on links and see what products my most trusted online parasocial acquaintances are recommending? Yes! Does this process of link-clicking mostly just serve to introduce me to beauty products and apparel and odds and ends I didn’t know I wanted? Also yes.
I’m coming to terms with the fact that I don’t really mind being under the influence of certain influencers. In the age of infinite e-commerce and limited time, I simply don’t have the bandwidth to endlessly browse the Internet for a new pair of Chelsea boots or carry-on tote bag. I refuse to feel guilty about turning to someone whose job it is to scour the Internet to suggest what to buy, especially if she tells me when it goes on sale. (Like a personal shopper at Nordstrom, but better! She’s not just paid by Nordstrom!)
However, I’ll acknowledge that the existence of all of these influencers means that it is easy to fall into the sinkhole of trying to find the best carry-on tote bag, especially when different websites offer you competing versions of the “Top Ten Best Carry-On Tote Bags” list. As Anne Helen Petersen noted earlier this year in a brilliant piece over on
, the “quest for the best” on a website like Wirecutter “throws a veil of dissatisfaction over our days. I look around the room and I see a laundry basket in need of optimization, an unsatisfactory rug, house plants that should be growing more. I need better tupperware, a kitchen remodel, some trick to clean my exterior windows that isn’t just me spending hours cleaning my exterior windows.” I remain conscious of overconsumption, as I’ve written about before, and I view each of my purchases through the lens of my husband, who never buys anything and is skeptical of all e-commerce. Before I buy something new, I try to ask myself if it is replacing something I already have, and if so, what I'm going to do with that item. (I’ve bought a lot of carry-on tote bags in my life, none of which has been perfect.) But sometimes, you had a baby three months ago and nothing fits and the pants are on sale.I’d like to think I remain susceptible to the influence of only a few women, all with impeccable taste. I’ve been influenced by Joanna Goddard’s breezy Brooklyn meets Paris aesthetic since I started reading her lifestyle blog, A Cup of Jo, in 2008—meaning I’ve been following her for so long that I can barely separate her own sense of style from my own. (You can get some more gift recommendation content over on her new newsletter
.) Claire Mazur and Erica Cerullo, co-founders of the now-defunct online boutique Of A Kind, can now be found at their podcast and newsletter A Thing Or Two. Where Goddard is queen of the gift guide for more general categories of recipients (husbands, brothers, best friends), each holiday season, Mazur and Cerullo offer recommendations in response to hyper-specific queries for difficult-to-gift-for relatives. See, e.g.:
Mazur and Cerullo have expensive taste, but are also genius gift givers. I’m just here to enjoy being a witness to their prowess. I applaud. In comparison, Caroline Moss over at
is a coupon-clipping everywoman. Moss also has impeccable taste (and impeccable humor—I’ve been obsessed since reading her Hey Ladies series on The Toast a decade ago. RIP.)—and tries everything so I don’t have to, and then tells us when her favorite things go on sale. Newer to the influence game are Claire and Emma of Bachelor Nation recap podcast “Love To See It” and their feminist cultural criticism podcast/newsletter . In my head we are once-a-week dinner friends, and so when they started offering weekly “What I’m Buying” recaps in , I was thrilled to take our parasocial relationship to the next level by dressing similarly. (Thank you, Claire, for all of the maternity fashion recs.)With brick and mortar retail more or less dead in the Bay Area, link-clicking is the new aimless browsing. Unless I want to drive to Walnut Creek (which I almost never do), no longer can I go to the mall half-in-search-of-a-new-bra, half in boredom, only to peruse Anthropologie and Crate & Barrel for far longer than I intended. A weekly round up of my favorite influencer’s favorites provides the same dopamine hit as window-shopping. Do I buy more online than I do in-stores? Maybe yes. But I almost never buy anything online for full-price.
I don’t really have any desire to become an influencer, except perhaps in the literary arena—where I would be happy to make a living as a product tester and tastemaker. But because I love clicking links, I thought I would give you all the gift of a bunch of links to click, in exchange for being such loyal and devoted readers. May you see this gift guide as a gift! What follows are some gift recommendations for specific categories of recipients that I may or may not be intimately familiar with. And never fear, I will be regaling you with a list of my favorite books in 2023 soon.
Gifts with little to no footprint for the person who says they don’t need anything:
A digital & Sunday subscription to their local newspaper. Keep journalism alive!
A paid subscription to their favorite Substack or other newsletter. This year, I’m paying for
, , and .Reusable storage solutions. Every time I go to the hardware store, I contemplate buying Stasher Bags or more Bee’s Wrap, but it never feels like the time to make the purchase. A great way to help curb your parents’ addiction to Ziplock.
A subscription to a composting service for those of us who aren’t lucky enough to have compost pick-up as part of our trash collection, or a subscription to Ridwell, for the person who is pained by their accumulation of hard-to-recycle items.
The best water bottle out there. Don’t just take my word for it!
agrees.Packing cubes, i.e., the most functional gift of all time. I have perfectly functional $16 made-in-China set from the site that will not be named, but these look cuter and higher-quality. I bought for my honeymoon and they changed the way I pack.
“Upgrade Gifts” that are likely to delight:
A beautiful paring/chef knife for the cook in your life.
Everyday Oil. The best substitute for body lotion.
Fancy Italian toothpaste that I discovered in Italy but that has since gone viral. I’m a fan of the cinnamon.
A cute umbrella .
A new cutting board for the cook who already has the Great Jones Baking Sheet.
The best once-a-week treat for a fancy shower.
My favorite, nearly invisible, pimple patches.
A stylish tote bag from one of their favorite museums.
Gifts for the family with a new baby:
It is SO FUN to buy baby gifts, but as a new mom who opened many a Nordstrom baby gift while not having any pants to wear, consider getting something for the new parents who are living in spit-up stained college sweatshirts and struggling to find time for a shower! If you have no idea what new parents might need or want, consider the following:
A mini Theragun or a gift certificate for a massage is a great gift for any new parent(s). Bopping a fussy baby all night on a yoga ball uses muscles you did not know you had. I’ve never longed so desperately for therapeutic touch.
A good friend sent us a Jeni’s Ice Cream box and (sorry to everyone reading this newsletter who sent me a gift or a meal in the last three months) and it may be the happiest I’ve ever been to receive a package.
Buttondown pajamas for a breastfeeding mom (or any mom)! This falls into one of my favorite categories of gift—the upgrade. IMO, there is nothing better than receiving a slightly nicer version of something than you would buy for yourself. While the new mom made not need another robe, my daughter spits up on my shoulder at least once a night and I find myself needing more pajamas than I ever thought possible. Here is my go-to favorite pair, which is almost always on sale in some color or sleeve combination on either the J. Crew or the J. Crew Factory website. Ben gifted me this lovely linen upgrade when our daughter was born, which doubles as high-contrast entertainment for her when she lays in bed with us in the morning. And how fun would it be to receive these or these?
In the same vein, a gift certificate so she can get herself a nice nursing or pumping bra or help herself to other postpartum accessories.
Tinted moisturizer with SPF for the new mom who is trying to simplify her beauty routine. I also love this one for a dewier look.
A crisp new sweatshirt for the dad who never buys himself new clothes, so he has something clean to wear in the morning when he takes the baby out so Mom can go back to sleep.
A copy of this book, which offers a delightful potential escape hatch from the insanity of American parenting.
A gentle, but supportive and detailed guide to the first five months of infant sleep.
And don’t forget, the old classic gift for new parents — dinner! If you are local and can cook and/or pick-up food, no one ever says no to “I just made a big pot of butternut squash soup. Can I drop some off for you?” The magic of this gift never wears off. It is as welcome at six months as it is at six weeks.
Lots of us are nostalgic about children’s books and who among us does not love picking out tiny clothes (okay, perhaps my father-in-law does not love picking out tiny clothes as much as he loves picking out books)!? But unless the new parents live in a 3600 square foot house with a finished basement and you know the baby has her own walk-in closet, they may not have the space (or desire) for a Barbie Jeep. If you ABSOLUTELY MUST buy something for the baby, consider something small:
This little guy is genius and is perfect for our daughter as she transitions from wanting to suck on a pacifier to teething. Even if we already had one, I wouldn’t mind an extra to keep in the diaper bag!
I’m obsessed with this diapering lotion as an alternative to diaper cream (and if you’re up for it, as an alternative to wipes. Just dab a little on a cotton square and wipe away). My daughter smiles every time I rub it on her tush, and so far, we are diaper rash free!
Pehr makes the most beautiful mobiles and my daughter will happily wiggle under her magical forest friends for ages. If you want to round out the gift to be installation ready, these are super easy to install.
Not for everyone, but if you think the new parents would be game, this cloth diapering “try-it” kit from Esembly offers an unintimidating way to experiment with cloth diapers. We were lucky to receive a bunch of Esembly handmedowns from a friend and haven’t looked back - they’re super easy!
I could go on and on and on but I have to get home to relieve my babysitter, which reminds me that, until we have federally-funded childcare, help with childcare may be the best gift of all! But if anyone can recommend the perfect carry-on tote, please do let me know.
This is the nicest thing anyone could ever write about me, honestly!
Thanks for the shout out! <3 <3 <3