Gifted Book Review: Read Before You Shop for the Holidays

Give yourself a gift before you go holiday shopping by picking up a copy of Gifted: 1,000 Gift Ideas for Everyone in Your Life by Sarah Weidman. This is not a book that will sit idle on the shelf; in fact, it is so practical and utterly delightful that you will use it all year long. Essentially a reference filled with online shopping sites, this volume will steer you to the most unique and appealing gifts on the web.

Weidman, tired of picking up last minute gifts that were “bland and impersonal,” began to create lists of gift ideas for specific family members and friends and to collect magazine clippings with creative places to find perfect gifts for the people in her life. Her lists morphed into Excel spreadsheets and her organization of venues began to take on a life of its own—hence, this book was published to showcase her ultimate shopping list filled with resources for every occasion and every interest. Thirty chapters are devoted to various types of people and filled with gift ideas and the places to purchase them. Different age groups are included and the gifts fall into a wide price range.

The chapters contain somewhat quirky titles, but they provide the organization such a book needs. Some chapter examples include:

• The Pet Lovah
• The Gadget Geek
• The Jet-Setter
• The Metrosexual
• The Know-It-All
• The Curious Kid.

It's beginning to cost a lot like Christmas.

Within each chapter Weidman includes websites for her wonderful gift ideas and descriptions of what shoppers will find there. What's more, once you decide to browse one of her online shopping destinations, you will be likely to find a whole lot more to consider for purchase. It’s a wonderfully down-to-Earth and practical shopping reference that is essential for the holidays but useful throughout the year.

Some of the gift ideas in this book are truly inspired! There’s the out-there lunarregistry.com that allows shoppers to buy a piece of moon real estate for someone, but there is also a site to donate to a special charity in someone’s name at justgive.org.

Other ideas include folk art from indigoarts.com, a wine-making kit from cabelas.com, Swarovski crystal domino sets from Neimanmarcus.com, customized lip gloss from cosmeticmall.com, custom charm bracelets from linksoflondon.com, night vision devices from mossonline.com, authentic Hollywood memorabilia from gottahaveit.com, and fancy chocolates from mrchocolate.com. Of course, these are just a few. The “Invent Your Own Ice Cream” gift from ecreamery.com is a great gift for a kid or any ice cream lover in the family. Consider stuffing stockings with old-fashioned candy from hometownfavorites.com.

This is a really terrific book that makes a great gift in itself. This book goes to all the trouble of brainstorming for perfect gifts so all you have to do is sit back with a cup of coffee and shop over the internet. You might even be tempted to buy something for yourself!