Mini-Ep 421: The 2024 Gift Guide

Mini-Episodes
Written By Forever 35 Podcast

Dor & Elise present the Forever35 Gift Guide of 2024! From kitchen to kids and sports to travel, find the gifts for everyone on your list.

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Transcript

 

*Transcripts are AI generated.

Doree:                Hello and welcome to Forever35, a podcast about the things we do to take care of ourselves. I'm Doree Shafrir here,

Elise:                   And I'm Elise Hugh. And we are just two friends who like to talk a lot about serums.

Doree:                This is usually where I say, this is a mini episode where we hear from you, we share your comments and your thoughts, and we answer your questions to the best of our ability. But today, we have a special episode because this is a gift guide episode, so you'll only be hearing from us and about our suggestions of things that you can buy for yourself, for your loved ones, for anyone in your orbit for whom you purchase a gift. So you may send us your feedback and your suggestions at Forever35 podcast@gmail.com or by calling or texting 7 8 1 5 9 1 0 3 9 0. But we will not be hearing from you this week.

Elise:                   Still call us though, because we will hear from you in all the other weeks. We're just very excited about this one annual event, one annual special episode that we do for the holidays and do, we've organized this gift guide as you and Kate previously did in various categories. So since I'm new here, I'll just let you take me through and I'll throw in my recommendations as you go along.

Doree:                Okay. I want to start with books and book related things. We have been doing this Forever35 questionnaire every week with our guests, and one of the things that we ask them is what is the book you recommend to everybody? We've also been compiling them and putting them periodically at our newsletter, but all of those are on a bookshop.org shelf, so we will link to that in the show notes. There's some really great suggestions in there. I mean, I love when people recommend books that I've never heard of. It's really fun. I have a couple of recommendations. One is the cookbook from Caroline Chambers who writes the What to Cook When You Don't Feel Like Cooking. This is a cookbook that I do not own yet, but I feel like would be super nice to have in my kitchen.

Elise:                   So if anybody is listening any

Doree:                Loved ones of Doree, I'm saying wink, wink. I'll also say that I did finally start the latest Armand Gamache novel from Louise Penney. I'd mentioned this on our pop culture episode, our Patreon pop culture episode that I had it, but I hadn't started yet. I'm now about a third of the way through and I'm really enjoying it. So a nice hard cover copy of that book could also be a nice gift for the mystery lover in your life. I have a question for you. Sorry, that just reminded me of something. Do you still buy hardcovers if you're going to read a book? Do you buy hardcovers?

Elise:                   Well, they're now averaging like $31,

Doree:                So

Elise:                   It's not cheap. And then cookbooks tend to be 40 or $45, but as a gift, I will often buy them books that I happen to really like, and I gift a lot like Tiny Beautiful Things by Cheryl Stray. Occasionally I'll buy the physical copy and send that or gift it, and then the Creative Act by Rick Rubin, that's a nice, thick, pretty bound hardcover book. So those are both good gift books that I like to give on occasion, but I don't tend to buy them for myself. Just for pleasure.

Doree:                Yeah,

Elise:                   The Libby app.

Doree:                Yeah, this is a whole other conversation. As an author,

Elise:                   You want people to buy hardcover

Doree:                Books, support. You want people to buy a book, but it's also, I wish books. I agree. Books are very expensive, and I feel slash fear that people like myself are only buying hardcover as gifts because they do feel like a special occasion thing. So as an author, I feel torn, but as a consumer, I am like, yo books are too expensive. So that's where I'm at. It's a paradox. Yeah, it's a paradox. It's a paradox. Alright, let's move on to another category, home and kitchen. You had a few suggestions in this category, Elise.

Elise:                   Yes, I'm very excited about lightweight cast iron pans. So cast iron skillets. Ooh, okay. Yes, I know a lot of y'all probably have the iconic lodge skillet, and we got one when we got married and I've had it forever, but there's a lot of maintenance required over the years with that and this cast iron pan. Or you can get a cast iron set from the field company, which we'll link is just less maintenance, but still a nice cast iron pan and it's much lighter, so you're not like having to use two hands to get it out of your cabinet.

Doree:                Okay, this is a hot

Elise:                   Tip, and then I know we're all trying to reduce plastic, so I put a produce bag in there in my picks from Ambrosia, and it's a good choice if you're just trying to reduce plastic when you go to Trader Joe's and want to bring your produce home and put it in the fridge. So that's from Ambrosia. I have linked that as well. I have other small home items, which you'll see on the full list, like a $2 and 90 cents foam soap dish. And then we should mention a bunch of dish towels. There's a ton of dish towel recommendations from our dish towel roundup that we did a few months ago, and if y'all want to look at that, that is in a recent Forever35 newsletter. So maybe Sammy can find a way to include some of those in the guide.

Doree:                I also have an item in the kitchen section, and this is more of, this is a fantasy item for me, the company. This is a stories wishlist slash gift list. Listen, I think this would make a great gift for anyone, but I'm just saying, and to be honest, I don't actually have the counter space for this item, but this is in my fantasy dream world where I have this enormous Nancy Meyer's kitchen.

Elise:                   What is it?

Doree:                Okay, it's from the company Ninja, which they make the bullet blender. So now they make so many different things, but they also make an item called the slushy. That's slush with an I at the end, professional frozen drink maker. Ooh,

Elise:                   Fellini and margaritas.

Doree:                It has five preset functions, slush, spiked, slush frap milkshake or frozen juice, works with wine, wine, coffee, soda juice, chocolate milk and more must include sugar to slush. I mean, can you imagine what kind of parties you could have with this thing?

Elise:                   Yeah.

Doree:                The stock photos they have of what you can make with this are truly, truly, oh, I got to check this out. Just the thought of relaxing with a pina colada. I love a pina colada. So this item is what is the price point on this item? The price point of this is 2 99 95, so $300.

Elise:                   Okay, wow.

Doree:                Which feels like it's expensive, especially for something that essentially does one thing, but it's also not so insane that it's totally out of reach. This feels like a nice, pretty extravagant gift for someone in your life. You know what I mean? Yes. So you'd have to make sure they have a counter space.

Elise:                   Right. I need to check out their kitchen first.

Doree:                Exactly. Are they frozen? Drink people? Right. Alright, let's do one more category before we take a break. So let's head on over to kids and Pets. Yay. We always put them in the same category, which I always thought was funny.

Elise:                   My pets are definitely, my kids

                             Sometimes would rather spend time with my pets than my human kids. I hear that. Which is a recurring theme here. So my dog suggestion are these quiet and very tough dog toys from super rough, which I will link. They like Don't squeak as loud, which those of you all who have been listening to every episode since I got my puppy Oscar, know that sometimes Oscar is really working one of his toys in the background, and our editor, Sammy has to actually deal with it and edit it out because Oscar is so loud with some of his toys. And so the super rough is a workaround for that. It's kind of a bougie, super tough dog toy that also has some sort of squeak technology to keep the squeaking quiet and yet still enjoyable for the dog. That's genius. I had to ask around to find some solution for this because of my podcasting disturbances.

Doree:                That's so

Elise:                   Funny. Yeah. And then for cats, I have a kitty Zaki. So an Zaki is obviously a Japanese brew pub type place. They have food on the skewers and lots of beers and everything, and my cat has one now too. It's a scratching. It's a scratch pad that's a house door. You have the link in front of you, you can click on it. And so it's hard for me to actually describe, but the flooring of the little Zaki house is a scratch pad, so the cat can go inside and scratch. But then there's also kind of a bar with little drinks in front along the bar top that like SRO instead of sro, and then little fake whiskey bottles so that when your cat's in the little house, the Iki playing his face, you can see his face kind of working the bar and tending the bar. And then on the other side there is a hole cutout where if he sticks his head out, his head is the head of a sushi chef. And so there's little paws cutting sushi. It's so cute. God, we have it in our front bay window of the house, and so many kids love to come and walk by and watch Abe prepare his sushi in his little kitty.

Doree:                I also just want to note, they have different varieties of this. You can get the Korean barbecue themed one. Oh,

Elise:                   What? I can

Doree:                Change houses. Yes. They have a pancake shop that is also,

Elise:                   It's like street food

Doree:                Pancakes. Yeah. Yeah. I don't know if it's Korean or Japanese or There's the Onsen Hotel. There's a gingerbread house, there's a coffee shop. That is hilarious. The coffee shop might be the funniest one because it just has a little round hole that the cat can poke his head out of. Right. They're so delightful.

Elise:                   Oh my gosh, these cute. They're so delightful. Cute. I love mine. Abe loves his, and he hangs out in the window and it's brought a lot of joy to the neighborhood, so I recommend it. My mother not in-law, Susan, Rob's mom got it for me, I think last holidays and well really, she got it for Abe and it's awesome.

Doree:                Susan knows what's up. Yes, she does. My son and all of his kindergarten friends are obsessed with remote control spiders. I don't know if this is something that has been around forever or if this is just a new thing, but they all, they're really into remote control spiders. So there's remote control spiders, and then there's also these ones that we saw at Disneyland where if you get two of them, they can fight each other.

Elise:                   Wow. Oh, I could get this for Rob's sons,

Doree:                But I think that you have to buy them at those. I think you have to buy at Disneyland because I couldn't find them online. It was like the only thing I saw at the reference. So it's not just the price of the item, it's the price of the

Elise:                   Item

Doree:                Plus

Elise:                   Entry into Disneyland.

Doree:                Yes, exactly. But you can just get a regular old remote control spider from Target for 1659. So I feel like it's, I don't know, it's so weird and fun

Elise:                   And we'll link to that.

Doree:                We'll, alright, we are going to take a break and we will be right back with some more gifts. Alright, we have returned,

Elise:                   I have one more kid thing and it's a big hit it in my house for both the elementary aged girls. It's emotional support, fries, plushy. So it's a plush, but it says emotional support fries on the container and it's individual french fries. This is not actually food. It's like a stuffy that looks like food. Each fry has a little facial expression and I know Luna likes to take this to school. And then every friend gets a fry and they have a good time.

Doree:                Oh my

Elise:                   God. Emotional support, fries,

Doree:                Emotion, love

Elise:                   Support,

Doree:                Fries.

Elise:                   And we have some games too. Games

Doree:                And crafts and things. Well, we have some game related suggestions. One of them is from our advertiser Uncommon Goods. So as we talk about in the ad, uncommon Goods has a lot of personalizable, but then also specific fandom related things. They've have a lot of things you can get that are like your college sports team or the baseball team you like. And so one of the things that they have that I actually think I might get for Henry and or Matt are these playing cards that have illustrations of every major league baseball stadium. And they're really pretty, they're kind of old timey looking, so they're 20 bucks. But with our code, if you go to Uncommon

Elise:                   Goods, additional

Doree:                An additional 15% off. So if you go to uncommon goods.com/forever three five, you get 15% off. So that's fun. And then this was just so ridiculous that I had to put it in. Gucci makes a set of dice, five dice that come in a little Gucci holder. It looks like a mini wallet or something Or something that would hold, oh my goodness. A comb. Oh my goodness. You can personalize it with initials. This is truly for the person who has everything because these five dice are $430.

Elise:                   How much is that per dice? That's like what, $90 per dice almost?

Doree:                Yeah, they Gucci has

Elise:                   Dai. What is the

Doree:                Singular? Yeah, they have a bunch of other game things. They call it a decorative Mahjong set that is $23,000. What? Yes. And it says decorative. So I'm like, can you not even actually play Mahjong? So

Elise:                   It's, we're only putting this on the list as a joke really. But if you really want to go for it,

Doree:                They also have playing cards for $350. I mean, it just kind of made me laugh that they had all these things. The other thing that I just want to mention is if anyone in your life is starting to play Mahjong, you could get them a nice American Mahjong set if they're playing American Mahjong. And there's really pretty ones for between 150, $200. There's also these new bougie, preppy Mahjong sets that they're charging like 400 to $500 for.

Elise:                   Wow.

Doree:                You really don't need to buy one of those. Okay.

Elise:                   Seems like a reach.

Doree:                Yeah, I think it's a reach. Alright. Do you want to talk about some jewelry that you are into?

Elise:                   Yes. So I don't have a bunch of fancy jewelry because I'm likely to lose it. So I like delicate gold jewelry that isn't at a really ridiculous price point. And I found these chime earrings from Jack and G that I really like and they dress up any outfit and they're very lightweight and they're solid gold and they're $55. So it's not completely out of question. So I'm going to link those. And also something just kind of cute is James Avery, which was a big brand in my youth. I think James Avery might be from Texas or Dallas where I grew up. And they are known for these charm bracelets, which as girls and tweens or teens, we collected the charms and wore them on our bracelets. But the charms you can wear on anything and they have an avocado toast charm. That's so cute. And you can get it and wear it on a necklace or you just get it as a gift. James Avery also makes a Whataburger charm and Whataburger is one of my favorite fast food chains. And so one year I got a Whataburger charm from a friend as a gift, and she's like, tell me I can't see straight into your soul because it was the perfect gift. But the avocado toast charm is there at James Avery, and we'll link that to you and Doree, you have a charm too, kind of, right?

Doree:                Yes, yes. So I love everything that Susan Alexandra makes. She just has the most whimsical, charming bags and jewelry and a lot of her stuff is above my price point, but she makes these really cute bag charms that

Elise:                   My mom would love. This

Doree:                Mostly seem to be, and they mostly seem to be like 60 to $80, which is a lot. But I feel like it's one of those things where you get the cheapest thing from the expensive brand, you know what I mean? It's a fun way to get something from her that you might not have been able to afford it. Oh, these are cute otherwise. And they're really cute and really, really sweet. Choose everything from, there's one that's a head of lettuce, it looks like.

Elise:                   It looks like a bok choy.

Doree:                Yeah, there's cherries, there's little poodles. They're really cute. So that was my little jewelry and accessories recommendation.

Elise:                   Love.

Doree:                Love. Okay. I have a couple of crafty recommendations. Alright, so I was poking around to find some cool craft kits and I came across this site called Robo Time or Robot Time, and they make these kits for miniature rooms and houses and they're so cute. I love

Elise:                   Mini stuff.

Doree:                Yeah, mini stuff is just so cute. And I feel like doing one of these be really calming and they're so, yeah, they're just so charming. They seem to range from, depending on the size, they seem to range from about $18 to $50. So to check that out, not too bad.

Elise:                   I can imagine Ava, who's my most fastidious daughter really being into this.

Doree:                Oh good. Okay. Alright. That was one of my suggestions. And then the other thing that I just wanted to shout out are the Mondo Lama craft kits from Target. I feel like every year Targets Targets House brand.

Elise:                   They're really upping the game there.

Doree:                Yes. They're really upping the game. I feel like they started with just sidewalk chalk and you know what I mean, random stuff. And now they have really great craft kits and paints and all kinds of things. And their price point is amazing. They have a ton of Christmas themed stuff. If that's your thing, they have an ornament kit that costs $5.

Elise:                   Yeah, I would just throwing in this out here, these kits, sometimes I buy or bought these kits in lieu of making little party bags when you're hosting a birthday party and you do the bag of crap.

Doree:                Yeah,

Elise:                   That's really cute. Little plastic things and toys and candy and things. So instead of that, I'll do one thing often and if you get a craft kit for every kid, you can send them home from the party with that. So that's just one little hack from the Hugh house.

Doree:                Great. Hugh Hack. Whack a whack. Alright, we are going to take another short break and we will be right back. Okay, we are back. Few more categories. Elise, you had several travel suggestions and as someone who travels a lot, I feel like people do ask us quite frequently for your travel tips. So I would love for you to go through these recs that you have.

Elise:                   Yeah, I'm not going to gate keep these items and I have more than what I'm going to mention. I'll just mention a few. I'm going to include a travel jewelry case on our list of links because it's, it's a compact case and I keep my earrings and my necklaces and my rings and all those things. In this case when I travel so that I don't have random earrings jostling around in my DOB kit, which has happened before and everything gets tangled and destroyed. So now that I'm a grownup, I'm using a travel jewelry case, which we'll link to, but I really, really love my retractable USBC cables. Yeah, they retract, so they extend and retract and you can keep 'em nice and small and keep those from getting all tangled. Just having tangled things is really annoying, especially cables when you're unpacking or repacking. So

                             Love the retractable cables. The one thing I really want to mention from my travel category are these little cases that you can use. I think they're actually pencil cases. They're standup pencil cases, but you can put your makeup brushes in them. And so it's so cute. They're like, you can get a little Fox one or a Panda one and they zip close and then you open up the top and then they stand up so that when you get to your location, you want all your makeup brushes standing up. And I really have three, let's just be honest here. So I don't do very much makeup, but if you want to keep your brushes separate and then not get, also don't want to go fishing around your makeup bag for them,

Doree:                A

Elise:                   Separate makeup brush bag that stands up and is very cute, has a cute animal on it, is lovely. So that is from Amazon, a great tip

                             Including that. And then I just want to shout out, I've already shouted out one Moji product earlier, but I'm going to also shout out the moji hard shell suitcases because even though I have the O away suitcases that everybody seems to have the moji hard shell suitcases are better, and I gift those to my loved ones. The wheels are very smooth, they lock really well. They're smaller sizes. So if you want a more compact roller bag. And then I also think the shells are tougher and harder and just kind of better made. So I really like them. I don't want to stop standing away. Away has been supportive of some of my efforts and things in the past and I've gotten to interview them and whatnot. But I prefer, personally, if I'm gifting things, I'm gifting the Moji suitcase.

Doree:                Okay. Wow.

Elise:                   So some travel things, the specifics will be listed. I'm also going to put a multitool in there just so that you have a set of mini screwdrivers because you never know when your suitcase might fall apart or something, or your glasses might need tightening. There's a great multitool for that that I'm going to link.

Doree:                Okay. Continuing on the theme of fantasy gifts for Doree,

Elise:                   That's just really threaded throughout this

Doree:                Episode. We're going to move on to sports because if I or someone who loved me had money to burn, I would want them to get me a ball machine.

Elise:                   Yes. How much do those cost?

Doree:                So there's one that Reddit says is the best one, and it's called the Proton High Performance Ball Machine. And it starts at about $1,700

Elise:                   And it just spits out tennis balls at you so that you can hit back.

Doree:                Yes. But you can, this one you can program and you can have it hit you different kinds of ball. It's just supposedly a really great ball machine. My cursory research into this is that they range from about seven to $800 to two grand. So for the most part it's a pretty significant investment. And a lot of courts have ones you can rent, but not at the public courts that I play at most frequently. They don't have any ball machines and they're just good to do drills and stuff like that. So that's like my tennis, my expensive tennis goal. Dream

Elise:                   Item.

Doree:                Yeah. My dream item is to get a ball machine. So there you have, have

Elise:                   More. Yeah. Do you have anything in the two digits or the three digit price range that you

Doree:                Might? So I do want something in the three digit price range. It is a bag. Cool. It's actually a backpack. A

Elise:                   Tennis bag.

Doree:                Okay. Yeah, a tennis bag that you can also use as a backpack. It's from a company called a DV. I have not, full disclosure, I've not actually seen this bag in person, but on the internet it looks amazing. I have a really nice tennis backpack that Matt got me for Christmas a couple years ago, but it's not big enough and it doesn't have enough pockets.

Elise:                   Oh,

Doree:                I like a bag with a lot of pockets. I need a lot of pockets. So satisfying. So that is something I would want. And then the other thing that I think is fun to get for the tennis player in your life is a case of nice tennis balls. So I would say the favorite nice tennis ball of most recreational players are the Wilson US Open tennis balls. And they run about $110 for a case. And that's 24. That's 24 cans.

Elise:                   24 cans. So a can of three. So you're buying like 70? 70. Oh my gosh. Math 72, tennis balls for 110. That's not bad.

Doree:                Yeah, when you buy by the case, it's not too bad. Now you can get a case of balls at Costco for like 45 bucks and those balls are okay. They're fine. They're fine. I think you might not, they're fine. But I think these US open balls are, they're noticeably better balls in my opinion. So if you do have a tennis player in your life, I think this is a fun gift to just give them a huge box of tennis balls. Elise, did you have any sports, sports related stuff you wanted to mention?

Elise:                   Just two quick things that you reminded me of when you mentioned you wanted the ball machine. We have a ball rebounder in our yard that we just got a few months ago, which is really awesome. It's by Franklin and it's used, I think the original intent is for baseball players to throw a baseball into, but Ava uses it for volleyball. I think volleyball players also do, you can change the angle of the rebounder net and so she'll practice spiking into it.

Doree:                Oh, interesting. Okay.

Elise:                   But you can also kind of bump, you can toss into it and then bump. And so she's really enjoyed that. It didn't take too long to put together. So I'll throw the rebounder on the list and also in the hydration vessel department, I really love the Lark water bottle. So if you want to get a fancy water bottle for someone in your life, there is a Lark brand water bottle that has a separate cap attachment that has the light, the self-cleaning light it has that is it UV light that then cleans the inside of the bottle and it adds to the already hefty price of it. But I love my Lark water bottle. I got it as a gift a few years ago and I continue to use it. And so I suppose if you're getting enough uses out of it or you have somebody really special that you want to gift it for, I do recommend it.

Doree:                Oh, okay.

Elise:                   I think it was originally invented on Shark Tank. I want to say it might've been a Shark Tank product.

Doree:                Okay. But

Elise:                   It's LARQ Lark.

Doree:                Great. Well, Elise, great. Rex,

Elise:                   Same to you. Great wishlist do.

Doree:                Thank you. Thank you so much.

Elise:                   I hope Matt is listening.

Doree:                Yeah, I know. Feel like these episodes are often my fantasy ones. There was one year where I just put a bunch of expensive designer bags on there and I was like, these are my fantasy bags. Why not? Why not? But I hope you all enjoy those and let us know what you are wanting for the holidays, what you're getting people for the holidays. I'd love to put together a listener gift guide as well.

Elise:                   Have fun. Yeah, we can crowdsource one.

Doree:                Yeah. All right. Thanks, everybody. Talk next time. Bye.

 
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