Gift Guide Round 1: Moms, Dads, and Significant (or Formerly Significant) Others

 

It’s gift-guide season around these parts, and here we are with the first of three—three!—installments to help you along with the hardest-to-shop-for people in your life (hopefully). If you need more ideas, subscribing to Secret Menu might be just the answer.

 

Moms and Mothers-in-Law!

 

Single mom by choice to an amazing little girl. Since it's just the two of us and she's a toddler, I need to help her buy her a gift for me. I realize that buying a gift for one's self shouldn't be difficult but I'm saving to buy us a condo and this will be my one quality and/or impractical spend for the foreseeable future. So I want to make it count and I'd love your help. I am willing to spend up to $400.00. I appreciate smart function in design and I have lost zero baby weight, so anything that involves sizing has the potential to make me cry, which feels like it would defeat the purpose. I work about 75 hours a week and am currently doing so remotely. Would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks!

• Fused bracelet like a Fewer Finer Eternal Bracelet or an Ochre Objects Permanence one
• Birthstone earrings—maybe one of your birthstone and one of hers. White/Space Francesca studs are sold as solos.
• Earrings/necklace you could build on each year: Scosha charms, Lizzie Fortunato mood necklace with an alphabet charm, and Fewer Finer vintage charms
• Kinn Studio locket
• A break! A one-night staycation or spa day

 

76 yo mom, super practical, can't throw stuff away, just lost her husband of 60+ years.

• Tidy Tova Virtual Tidiness
• Organizing accessories: Hay, Open Spaces, and Yamazaki Home
• POJ Studio Kintsugi Kit
• Mending kit: Merchant & Mills Rapid Repair Kit and Purl Soho Cotton Mending Thread
• Yuns Hardware gift certificate
• Dims Watering Can + Via Citrus tree
• Monthly flower delivery—you can make any bouquet a subscription with Farmgirl Flowers
• Miriam Toews novel: Fight Night or Women Talking
• Donation to her local library

 

My new step mom who has very good taste and loves thrifting

• Summersill & Bishop alphabet napkins
• Vintage calendar from 2011, 2005, 1994, 1983, 1977, 1966, 1955, 1949, 1938, or 1927
• Greystone Needlepoint book cover
• Back issues of a favorite magazine—Gourmet?
• Berea College Student Craft
• Machete Apple Watch band
• Misette colorblock collection
• Beata Heuman: Every Room Should Sing
• The House that Pinterest Built by Diane Keaton
• Vintage piece from French Larkspur or One Day in France
• Do thrifting for her—splatterware, jadeite, or Fiestaware?

 

Frumpy MIL that you can't stand

• Ember mug (now a travel one, too)
• Eileen Fisher brushed recycled cotton cashmere scarf
• Hillery Sproatt blanket
• Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout
• Psychic Outlaw quilted stocking
• Farmhouse Pottery gift set
• Mutual aid org

 

My southern mom who thinks NYC made me snobby 

• Magnolia Bakery banana pudding
• Oliver Pluff Southern Style Iced Tea
• Cookbooks by Southern female chef: Black, White, and the Grey by Mashama Bailey and John O. Morisano and Mosquito Supper Club by Melissa M. Martin
• Chara’s BBQ sauce
• These Precious Days by Ann Patchett
• Alabama Chanin sewing kit

 

Dads and Fathers-in-Law!

 

My dad! A very intelligent man. Passionate about baseball but has season tickets. Very covid cautious. Has read all books. Doesn't drink. Isn't handy (no tools). Plays scrabble and has all the boards, no other games. Very fashion apathetic and I always get him clothes. Likes to bike but has a very nice bike and all accessories. Has snow shovel service. Really only cares about his grandkids but spends tons of time with them. Still works (lawyer) and tends to buy anything he needs which is very little! Always a conumdrum.

• Equal Justice Initiative donation
• Argo attachment for front of bike to haul grandkids (group gift potential)
• Non-alcoholic bevs: Ghia, Non, Acid League Wine Proxies, Hella Cocktail Bitters & Soda variety pack, Avec
• NYT Crossword/Spelling Bee subscription
• StoryWorth
• Black Champions in Cycling by Marlon Moncrieffe

 

My dad! Buys himself everything he needs, likes rock and roll bios and mushrooming. and wine!

• Smallhold mushroom grow kit
• Mushrooms in the Middle: A Smallhold Cookbook
• How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us about Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence by Michael Pollan 
• A Really Good Day: How Microdosing Made a Mega Difference in My Mood, My Marriage and My Life by Ayelet Waldman (paired with this Yelp review??)
• Acid for the Children by Flea and donation to Silverlake Conservatory of Music
• Rose Los Angeles x Gossamer CBD Rosin Delights
• Cure Crate
• Maison Noir mix case
• Coda Collection subscription
• Eden Reforestation Projects donation
• Last Prisoner Project donation

 

FIL: widower, engineer, spotless home, not into design, kinda into fitness & cooking

• Blue Hill charcuterie picks
• Tapas the José Andrés Way
• Allday knife
• Spices: Burlap & Barrel and Diaspora Co.
• Omsom
• Everyone's Table: Global Recipes for Modern Health by Gregory Gourdet & JJ Goode
• The Essential New York Times Cookbook: The Recipes of Record (Anniversary)
• Top Drawer reversible slippers
• Future gift certificate
• Andree Jardin duster and/or Saint Olio cleaning spray and room spray
• Engineers without Borders donation

 

Romantic Partners (and Former Ones)!

 

A NFT-obsessed new dad who wants to be a lumberjack but actually buys Aimee Leon Dore

• King Kennedy Rugs bag or bomber
• Corridor plaid shirt
• Drake’s check work shirt
• Fear of God thermal pant + henley
• Clark’s Wallabees
• Blackstock & Weber loafers
• Garagiste gift certificate
• Blockchain for Babies (to read to the kid!)
• Best Made axe
• Melanie Abrantes DIY plate set
• Woodworking classes: Makeville Studio in Brooklyn or LA Woodshop in L.A.

 

I need help with my 49-year-old, male, partner. He's a commercial architect, but is super judgey about architect stuff. He constantly scrolls Zillow and vintage car sites. He drinks bourbon, but doesn't want whisky stones and we have an excellent set of glasses. He likes luxury, but won't wear a logo ever. He loves art - folk, sculpture, modern (sometimes the weirder the better) and he created about half the pieces in our house. We live in Atlanta, watch garbage TV and eat/cook good food. Help!

• Cameo from garbage TV cast member announcing an experiential gift
• Glaze Studio matchboxes
• Meet Your Matches commission
• Pedersen + Lennard bird feeder
• George Jensen bottle opener or cocktail shaker
• The materials for a Self Assembly project
• Do It Yourself by Thomas Barnthaler
• Vinty vintage/classic car rental
• Banner Butter 

 

Old soul male significant other who manages to find all the wilderness in nyc (birding in prospect park, surfing in the rockaways) in his 20s.

• Matuse wetsuit—or gloves or booties
• Merch (or sauna time or a haircut) from Almeda Club, a cute Rockaways surf shop
• Overnight stay in the Rockaways at The Rockaway Hotel or the vintage 1963 Shasta camper on Hipcamp
• Trip to Mohonk Mountain House (also does daypasses)
• Bose Soundlink indoor/outdoor speaker
• Field Guide to the Neighborhood Birds of New York City by Leslie Day
• Donation to Laru Beya Collective

Girlfriend who is super Catholic but also super woo and into crystals, energy, etc.

• Cool cross necklace from Pamela Love, Chan Luu, or Erica Weiner (coral, turquoise, etc.!)
• Spur—if there’s a crystal that means something to her, get it made into jewelry!
• PIA jewelry 
• Vintage books on herbalism
• Priestdaddy by Patricia Lockwood
• Golde Complete wellness and beauty kit
• Crockd Pottery Kit
• Donation to DignityUSA

My ex husband who doesn't deserve a gift but we share a daughter together 

• Something for them to do together—tickets to a basketball game or a museum, a video game, etc.

 

A friend who I had a thing with (years ago) and has a jealous girlfriend

• Nothing! This person does not need a gift from you!
• If you want to win her over, something consumable for them: Westbourne snacks, Zingerman’s noodle kugel, Pizzeria Bianco pizzas, Loria Stern something, or Blackberry Farm biscuits three ways 

 

For last year’s gift guides, head here and here.

 

Keep those VMs and DMs coming at 833-632-5463 and @athingortwohq!

 

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YAY.

 

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