Christmas Gift Ideas

Here are my best Christmas gift ideas. Most can be ordered from Amazon with one- or two-day shipping, so they are suitable for procrastinators. Nearly everything here is something that I own or have read.

For anyone born in New York City, Mannahatta: A Natural History of New York City.

For science-oriented middle school kids, The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe (I secretly want one for myself).

For a young kid, Samoyed stuffed toy (Okay, I admit that I have one in my bedroom).

Now that global warming has been discredited as a hoax, for anyone living in the northeast… Yaktrax Pro Traction Cleats (I arrived home last night from Orlando to discover a sheet of ice covering my driveway).

For anyone planning to vacation in Florida, any book by Carl Hiaasen, e.g., Skinny Dip.

For anyone who hasn’t learned anything new for a while, an introductory flight lesson. Your local airport probably has a flight school that offers gift certificates for $100 or $150 that will cover the first 30-60 minutes of instruction.

A friend asked me about a camera to give to her teenage daughter. She wanted something that the girl could use for creative purposes all the way through college. I like the professional full-frame Canon and Nikon bodies and lenses, but the weight and cost aren’t bearable for a typical consumer. I recommended the Olympus Evolt E620.

For a music, photo, or video-lover: load up all of your favorites onto a Seagate FreeAgent Go 500 GB and then mail the little hard drive to them. Most external hard drives require an additional power supply and an additional plug into the wall, but this one powers itself from a USB cable. Your friend can use the extra space on the drive to back up his or her PC (the software is included).

If you want that music lover to be able to play his or her collection throughout the house, Sonos BU250 Multiroom Music System (see my whole house music article).

For a football lover, Panasonic TC-P50G10 50-Inch Plasma HDTV (I ordered this back in April after reading an electronics reporter say that it was the best TV of the Consumer Electronics Show 2009.)

If you think that giving to charity would be more in keeping with Jesus’s philosophy, let me suggest Partners in Health, whose financials are discussed at the bottom of my posting on Mountains Beyond Mountains. If you’d rather do something more personal and direct, along the lines of the 2006 water buffalo donation (the video is great), let me put in a plug for my cousin Jennifer’s Enriching Education in Rural Ecuador (EERE). Jennifer is an American who grew up in Ecuador and currently lives in the countryside with her family. She sends her son to the local school where she volunteers as an English teacher. She takes no salary from her non-profit and 100 percent of donations are used directly for the benefit of students, e.g., to buy textbooks. Is she going to change the whole country and then the world like Greg Mortenson describes himself doing in Three Cups of Tea? No. And neither are your donations to EERE. But a donation will end up making a concrete difference to an identifiable child.

As Jennifer spends most of the year in Ecuador, the best thing to do is send a check to EERE’s bank:

Alexis Vives, Asst. Branch Manager
SunTrust Bank
11700 North Kendall Drive
Miami, FL 33186
Account # 1000099874991 (Enriching Education in Rural Ecuador, Inc.)
Questions about how to send money: call (305) 274-5722 or email alexis.vives@suntrust.com

Note that this guy doesn’t know anything about EERE or Jennifer’s work; he just works in a bank in Florida. If you have questions about what she is doing in Ecuador, contact her directly at jengittes@aol.com. EERE is an IRS-approved 501c3 organization, which makes your donation tax-deductible and your canceled check should be sufficient to verify your donation (though certainly Jennifer can send you a letter if you need it). Ecuador is a beautiful colorful country with a mild climate. Volunteering there at the school for a few weeks would not be a hardship.