2016 Holiday Gift Guide: 12 unique holiday gifts for home cooks, friends, family, kids & someone special.
It’s that time of year again, that is gift-giving holiday season! Mr. JOC and I often shop online to avoid traffic on the streets and madness in the stores. I used to prefer to touch and feel the products before I buy anything, but the convenience and free returns of online shopping has won me over.
So today, I’ve compiled a list of our all-time favorite gifts. Whether you are shopping for family, coworkers, friends, or yourself, I highly recommend these items as they have been used/bought/gifted myself personally.
Holiday Gift Guide – 12 Unique Gifts for Someone Special
Gifts For Home Cooks
1. 7-in-1 Multi Functional Pressure Cooker (Instant Pot)
I simply can’t stop talking about how great this electric pressure cooker / slow cooker is… for like the past 2 years. You see me giving away instant pots on my blog and I have shared some instant pot recipes using it. I’ll continue to share more pressure cooker recipes, so get one and join us on pressure cooking fun!
2. Water Brew Coffee Pot (Hario)
If you have seen my recent Cold Brew Coffee recipe, you’d read about this product in the post. We have two pots that we alternate while one is in the dish washer. We make cold brew coffee every. single. day.
This Hario Water Brew Coffee Maker makes cold brewing MUCH easier. So many of you already purchased it after reading the post, and gave me feedback with BIG thumbs up!
3. Open Kitchen Half Apron (William-Sonoma)
Do you wear an apron when you’re in the kitchen? I wear T-shirt and jeans everyday, so I am not worried about getting my clothes dirty. However, I do love and wear these half aprons every time I cook as I treat these aprons as my “kitchen towel” around my waist. It’s the best thing ever. When you’re in the kitchen, you wash your ingredients or hands all the time. Now you don’t have to look for the towel, it’s always on you.
And can you believe this apron is just $4.99 (used to be $6.99)? Unfortunately, it is not sold online. You have to purchase it at your local William Sonoma store, but it’s worth a trip. So get a couple of them.
4. Magic Whisk (Fox Run)
I receive many questions about cooking utensils and gadgets I use in my recipes. You may noticed that I now list all the kitchen tools I use in the video under the description box below.
The single most frequently asked question is the unique looking whisk I use (the bottom whisk in the picture above). This flat whisk is called Magic Whisk. When there are only small amount of dry or wet ingredients in a mixing bowl, this tool whisks perfectly.
5. 5-Piece Gold Flatware Set (West Elm)
What do you think of gold flatwares? I finally made a decision to buy these after three years of contemplating. And I’m happy that I purchased them! I thought they would look too fancy. But actually not. When you pair them with a simple table setting, they look warm and beautiful.
6. Wi-Fi Immersion Circulator (Nomiku)
We own this Nomiku for almost a year and Mr. JOC especially loves it for cooking his meat. This sous vide device is very reliable and it lets you cook like a master chef. The price is pretty high, and that’s the only negative. If you love hosting a party and cook for your guests, definitely get this to make Japanese-style Steak and Sous Vide Santa Maria Tri Tip.
7. Just One Cookbook – Essential Japanese Recipes (e-Book)
If you’re new to my blog, or if you know someone who loves Japanese food, I’d like to recommend my e-Book and start cooking Japanese food at home! 20% of proceeds will go to charity every month, and 100% in December 2016!
Gifts For Her, Him & Children
8. Basil & Neroli Cologne (Jo Malone) – for her & him
For my birthday this year, my very good friend gifted me this new scent from Jo Malone “Basil & Neroli“. It smells so good and delicious that I became an instant fan of this fragrance. If you’re in the Bay Area, there’s the first Jo Malone shop in Northern California on Union St. in San Francisco. If you’re not sure which one to choose, you can get this “cologne collection” (with 5 most loved colognes: Lime Basil & Mandarin, Basil & Neroli, Pomegranate Noir, Mimosa & Cardamom and Wood Sage & Sea Salt).
9. Matching Shoes (TOMS) – for her
I wear TOMS everyday (classic canvas slip-on like this), and I’ve been a HUGE fan for two reasons. 1) Super comfortable with simple designs. 2) For every product you purchase, TOMS will help a person in need {One for One}. I love companies who care about helping others in need and making a small difference in our lives everyday.
Recently I bought glitter/glimmer shoes for myself and my daughter. Matchy matchy!
10. ATH-M50x Professional Studio Monitor Headphones (Audio-Technica) – for him
In our office upstairs, each of our family members has a desk facing each wall (so we can look back or side to “monitor” the kids screen!). Each of us use headphones to keep the “noise” to ourselves when we work/study. Mr. JOC really like this headphones and picked this as his current favorite thing.
The headphone cushions are very comfortable and the sound quality is excellent, and it’s the best you can get for the price range.
11. How It Works Magazine Subscription – for children
Our kids love books. Our 10 year-old son especially enjoys learning and memorizing “facts” while our 8 year old daughter loves non-fiction stories. If you know some children who enjoy finding out facts, subscribing to “How It Works” magazine is a fun and great gift. My son literally looks forward to every next issue. When they were small, they also enjoyed Highlights for years.
12. Jewelry & Christmas Ornaments (Nozomi Project) – for her & him
You know that I’ve talked about Nozomi Project thousands times (maybe not that much, but often enough). But I can’t give up my hope that maybe someone is reading about Nozomi Project for the very first time.
If you never heard of Nozomi Project before, keep on reading. The ladies in Ishinomaki, Japan (where 2011 tsunami hit the hardest) make these beautiful jewelry out of broken pieces of pottery left by the tsunami. The jewelry they make is one of the kind.
I love collecting these beautiful Christmas ornaments every year. It’s hard to pick one for our tree every year. I love giving an ornament to friends as a gift, because every Christmas they will remember about our friendship. Get a beautiful ornament for your special friend and talk about how we can help the tsunami victims by purchasing these gifts. 🙂
Holiday Gift Guide
I hope this list was helpful and fun to go through. What are your favorite gifts to give for holidays? Please feel free to share your suggestion in your comment below! Happy shopping!
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I agree that shopping online is more comfortable because I hate crowded stores. Nowadays, we have lot of options to find sth special via Internet. For example I find perfect one this year, a star from Kingdom of Universe. It’s nice pick when you want to make an impression 😉
Hi Louis! Ohhh I heard about that one. It’s definitely an unique gift! 😀
I LOVE that apron, and would love to get it for my boyfriend since he loves to cook and has been using a kitchen towel stuffed into his pockets as an apron. It’s ‘no longer available” on the website. Do you any anywhere else I could find it, Nami?
Hi Christine! Oh I love this apron so much. It’s not big and doesn’t hang on my neck all day long… sometimes I wear it all day long when I’m in and out of the kitchen. LOL. When I checked online while I was writing this post, it was already no longer available. I purchased it at the store and hopefully they still carry it at your local store. It’s such a great deal, and I really use it like a towel. 😀 Hope your BF will get this one or something similar (but WS one is very cute and classic design).
Great holiday giving ideas Nami! I’ve never heard of TOMS shores before. Will definitely be checking those out. My SIL is going to love your cookbook!
I want it!!!!
I love this gift guide, Nami! So many great ideas and yay for the Instant Pot! Thank you for sharing about the Nozomi Project too. Such a great organization and cause <3
Thanks Nami for all the awesome recipes. Hope to be one of the winners.
Hi Jacky! Thank you for reading my blog! 🙂
Thanks Nami for your great gift suggestion! I bought the Instant Pot for my sister for Christmas… and today it is even almost 50% off 🙂
Hi Amber! Yes! I got to share it on Facebook too. Such a great deal. My personal friends bought one too. 😀 I now have to share many recipes using it. 😉
I love that you give so much visibility to the Nozomi project. I lived in Tohoku for a year after college teaching English, and visited Ishinomaki, where one of my friends was teaching, often. I also just love the symbolism of making something beautiful out of something broken.
Hi Rebeca! Thank you for your kind words. Being a blogger, I know how hard it is to get visibility and sometimes it takes years to get noticed. So I’m happy to help them. 🙂 How wonderful that you taught English in Japan! I always loved all my native English teachers who taught us English is a fun language to learn (not just grammar etc). 🙂
Hi Nami,
I shared your post on the Instant Pot with my cousin and he carried one all the way from NY to Singapore for me! Can’t wait to try it but I need to get a power adapter first otherwise it would go up in smoke just like what happened to the ice cream maker????.
Love all your posts!
Cheers,
Choo
Hi Choo! Your cousin is such a wonderful person!!!!!! It’s a big box to carry it back too. Hope you can get an adaptor soon and enjoy making delicious meals in your instant pot. 🙂
Thank you for mentioning the Nozomi Project in this post! I love it AND I’m reading about it for the first time! This organization warms my heart and I’m so delighted to learn about it. Thank you!
Hi Chieko! I’m happy to hear that you heard about Nozomi Project for the first time!!! And thanks for leaving your comment here so that I got to know. 🙂 ????