The Gift Guide for Lazy Millennials

Alright alright, this is finally it. The day you have to get serious about figuring out what you’re getting all your millennial family members and friends for the holidays. And you’re dreading it more than shopping for your mother-in-law, because: What do you get someone who’s 22 or older?

Younger than 22 is easy. You get them pointless stuff or clothes that won’t last, and if they’re 21 you get them cheap alcohol. Done. But once someone hits 22, they start to look for more permanence and they’re (hopefully) starting to have a discerning palate so that duo of peppermint- and whipped cream-flavored vodkas you got them last year won’t cut it. Even millennials don’t know what to get each other for birthdays and holidays. We don’t even know what we want.

Thankfully the all-inclusive, laze-encouraging internet is here to save you.

Something-Of-The-Month Clubs

Magazine subscriptions are so last decade. Netflix, Spotify, or HBO-Go subscriptions are good but they’re probably either on your account, on another family member’s account, or they’ve sucked it up and made the plunge themselves already. Or they’ve already found a free version.

Thus the monthly clubs.

The number of options is incredible. Wine. Socks. Makeup. Whiskey. Books. Razors. Ethnic foods. Cashmere. Ties. Jewelry. Temporary tattoos. Bacon. If you can think of it, it probably exists.

Fancy.com

At about the 11th hour you start to just wander through Target’s website and scroll through Amazon, desperately looking for something, anything, that will catch both your eye and that of whoever is giving you gifter’s block. Unfortunately, you have to wade through loose leaf paper, napkin rings, and toothpaste to find the interesting things, and the whole thing is exhausting and overwhelming.

Fancy.com is here to save you. Essentially the cool-things-only version of Amazon, Fancy.com has the stuff your millennial (and you) never knew you needed. Really: they have hangover prevention supplements, lamps that look like balloons up on your ceiling, Batman figurines, flying battle robots, 3-tier LED bar shelves, high-tech beds, beautiful headphones, crazy socks, art, putting green/skee ball mashups, wine glasses that don’t fall over, all of it. The list goes on and on. Prices range from $5 to tens of thousands of dollars (looking at you, cinema camera), so you’re guaranteed to find something in budget.

Fancy.com gift cards are also the way cooler version of the now-cliché Target and Amazon gift cards. Just saying.

Society6

If your millennial is a patron of the arts, or just bored with the same patterns and images that keep showing up everywhere (can we please move on from chevrons and ikat?), Society6 is the place. Every image and design on the site is created by artists all over the world, and they get a share of the profits every time you buy something they’ve designed.

Etsy

If you know your millennial wants something along the lines of home decor, jewelry, stationery, accessories, or even beef jerky, Etsy is the place to go. Everyone with a store on Etsy takes great pride in what they create. Besides, it always feels better to get things individually made rather than mass-produced. Everything I’ve ordered from Etsy has arrived quickly and beautifully wrapped, sometimes even with a handwritten note thanking me for my purchase, hoping I enjoy it, and encouraging me to contact the seller if I have any issues.

Fair Trade

You’ve heard of fair trade coffee, and you (hopefully) get excited when you see it for sale somewhere. But fair trade artisans make everything you can think of, from condiments to t-shirts to lanterns to furniture. Thanks to the incredible reach of the internet and globalization, you can buy all these things from the comfort of your couch. Just google “fair trade gifts” and dozens of websites will pop up.

Just think, without the internet and all these people sacrificing themselves to the greater good of bringing cool stuff together into one place that doesn’t require you to move, you’d have to actually go out and physically look for things. Ain’t nobody got time for that.