Column:

The perfect less-than-perfect gift guide

By Gwen Daniels

Published Dec. 9, 2008

When I'm shopping for Christmas presents, I usually hit up Black Friday sales, the University Bookstore and Amazon.com. This year, I'll add the Mustard Seed, the fair trade store downtown, to the mix.

But sometimes, my friends and family don't appreciate J.Crew headbands, school-spirited oven mitts and coffee mugs, paperback books, or artisan-crafted earrings.

So I've compiled the perfect less-than-perfect gift guide for those hard-to-please folks on your list. 

Holiday bonus: Each present is available online, so you can finish your holiday shopping during your 300-person biology lecture!

For the men in your life: Julia Allison, a girly-girl dating columnist and self-promotional blogger, recommends bacon. (If you read my columns semi-regularly, you probably know Julia at least as well as you know your great-great-cousin twice removed.) On her blog, Julia advocates a bevy of bacon-themed gifts: Bacon-flavored ice cream, beer, coffee, chocolate, breath mints, water, dental floss and toothpicks. A bacon-striped tuxedo. Bacon air freshener. Bacon-scented bubbles.

For your sweet-toothed sweetheart: If chocolate-covered berries won't cut it, drench your other favorite edibles in chocolate. I suggest chocolate-covered potato chips, ants (red ants are too spicy), crickets, basil or pork-rinds or chocolate-covered bacon, of course. With a quick Google search, you'll find recipes galore.

To show your love all year long: Give the gift that keeps on giving: a year-long subscription to a gift-of-the-month club! If coffee, flowers and fruit are too cliché, I found clubs offering monthly supplies of dog treats, golf balls, Bloody Marys, barbeque rubs and neckties, for example.

For the busy bee: Your time is up, 5-Hour Energy. Now, you can find energy boosters with crunch. Try NRG Potato Chips or SumSeeds, energy-boosting sunflower seeds.

For the future veterinarian: Your pet-obsessed friend may want a hippopotamus for Christmas, but large semi-aquatic animals can be expensive. The Web site "Weird for Sale" offers animal-themed alternatives. VIP Fibers, a small Texas company, spins freshly-shed pet hair into yarn, perfect for a hand-knit scarf or sweater. Or offer a gift to the pet itself. If a dog, cat, horse or bull has been neutered, a Neuticles implant can perk him up. (Motto: "Neuticles — it's like nothing ever changed!")

For the uptight: Try tights! Companies such as We Love Colors and Celeste Stein offer tights, hose, knee-highs, thigh-highs and socks in every color of the rainbow and in patterns, too. (I'm partial to plaid. Check, please!) Other prints are funkier — I've seen tights depicting Elvis, Marilyn Monroe, the first step on the moon, "The Creation of Adam," U.S. stamps and more.

For your friend with the sniffles: When you've been sneezing for months, standard Kleenex boxes get boring. Offer your allergy-prone friend something more fun! I found Tiki man, dog-bum, Shakespeare and other themed tissue dispensers.

For your bathroom-bound friend: Some people — and some gifts — never leave the bathroom. The Turd Twister creates Play-Doh-esque shapes such as hearts, stars, birthday cakes and gingerbread men. If you're looking for something more novel, some companies print full-length books on toilet paper.

For your friend who always sneaks snacks into the movie theater: Popcorn, popcorn with butter and popcorn with extra butter aren't the only options for snacking at the cinema. Try flavors such as peppermint, pumpkin pie, green apple, cinnamon, toasted marshmallow, bananas foster and grape instead!

If you're budget-conscious: Yes, you can find great gifts for under $10! My favorites?  A parking meter alarm key chain buzzes when it's time to feed the meter. The extendable Freeloader Fork lets big eaters steal food from two feet away — and doubles as a back-scratcher! And dissolving paper shampoo morphs from a sheet of paper to shampoo — just add water.