Need some elite gift ideas for 5-7 year old boys. I’m less poor than usual and these are the only people I’m really buying gifts for, plus I haven’t seen them in 2 years so <$100 each.
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I always surprise my nephews with awesome legos sets. This one is a higher end one but just using it as an example. Can’t go wrong with them.
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5 and 7 is in verge of Getting too old, but highly recommend Hess Trucks (well this year is a plane). Grandsons (3and 6) have a million trucks, but these are the best built and most played with of the bunch.
Also unique in the Midwest. Advantages of being east coast granddad.
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Do you know what they have or what their interests are? I’m buying for a 2-year-old genius that already has everything so I have to keep getting creative.
True story, I once bought Legos for my friend’s kids and got what I perceived to be subtle shade for it since they “were a Megabloks household due to Legos being too expensive.” My friend is a surgeon.
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Random: Was just thinking that I always wait too long to order this and miss the cut-off date. They are handmade bourbon chocolate truffles by Art Eatables in Louisville, specifically the “12 Days of Bourbon” limited Christmas edition. Yeah, they are expensive but there are some pretty exotic bourbons included. Price is marked $45 for 12 truffles but expect to pay another $12-$15 for shipping / taxes. Also check out the cheaper truffle packages which are definitely better value (same quality imo with slightly less rare bourbons used). Art Eatables is a boutique bourbon-certified chocolatier that has provided chocolates for the Academy Awards. The Christmas set usually sells out every year. It’s an oddball gift idea but has a high level of originality and exclusivity.
We’re featuring everything from super-rare releases like the Love Jones bourbon (sold to help raise recording funds) and a barrel pick from the BARDS (Bourbon and Rye Drinkers Society) to great examples of the work of newer distillers (like Alan Bishop’s Lee W. Sinclair out of Spirits of French Lick) to some unicorns like the Booker’s 30 year anniversary bourbon and a 2017 George T. Stagg.
This was the Academy Awards set:
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Gifting is hard this year due to backorders and grifting merchants. I’ve now ordered an item three times from different major sellers who claimed it was in stock. Waited 2-3 days before the order didn’t fill before calling customer service. In each case the item was backordered with varying estimates on availability (“April,” “maybe soon,” and “no idea”). What’s clear is that none of these places were going to contact me but instead sit on my money for an indefinite amount of time. These are major brands (direct) and retailers you’ve heard of, not fly-by-night sites.
I still have several items in backorder purgatory that major brands and retail outlets are advertising as in stock. Multiple calls to cancel these orders with reassurances that the cancellations will happen have not led to any reversal of charges so far. They absolutely want you to spent the money now and find out later because that’s the game this year and fuck you, that’s why.
Overall I think I did fairly well, ultimately copping a few items that were difficult to come up with. Not as tough as the PS5 last year but still more work than I wanna put in on this given the circumstances. Sometimes doing the extra work feels gratifying like the year I found a (discontinued) jacket that was still in one brick & mortar store somewhere in rural PA.
This year it’s more annoying because (1) the online flipper / scalper market is at an all-time high and (2) chip shortages mean a lot of items are on backorder, but it’s obvious to me now that one prevailing corporate strategy on this is to charge your card now and tell you later that your order will arrive in March 2022.
Some of the better gifts I landed on were:
Handmade stoneware dinnerware by a professional potter
A diminutive toaster oven with a cult following that cooks with infrared heat
Nintendo Switch OLED (was mostly sold out everywhere until last week)