Guy Gift Ideas

With a blog name like Gift Giving Guy, it's no surprise that my top Google searches seek guy gift ideas. I don't narrow my focus to gifts for men, but I've included more posts about guy gifts to meet the need. Here is an index of my posts for guy presents below, updated as I write more.

2009

• The Well-Traveled Gift: Moleskine City Notebooks (7/1/2009)
• Build Your Own Trader Joe's Gift Bag (6/28/2009)
• Give Thanks with a Gift Basket from igourmet.com (6/26/2009)
• Father's Day 2009: Cheryl&Co. Bakery Gift Tower (6/21/2009)
• The Gift of the iPhone 3GS (6/19/2009)
• The Gift of Calvin and Hobbes (6/7/2009)
• Get Well Gifts from Co-workers (6/7/2009)
• Seven Cool Tools for Dad from ThinkGeek (5/30/2009)
• March Madness Gifts (3/20/2009)
• Choice Chocolates for Valentine's Day (2/1/2009)
• How to Give Surprise Travel Gifts (1/2/2009)

2008

• Non-dishwasher Safe Gifts: Disappearing Civil Liberties Mugs (12/23/2008)
• Better Than Tube Socks: 21 Last-minute Online Gifts for Guys (12/22/2008)
• Gift Baskets for Christmas (11/29/2008)
• 13 Kitchen Gadgets of the Future (9/28/2008)
• 13 Going-to-College Gifts (8/18/2008)
• College Gift Finder 2008 (8/12/2008)
• The Gift of Omaha Steaks (7/13/2008)
• 100 Top Genre Movie Gifts (6/22/2008)
• Father's Day 2008: The Red Green Show DVD (6/15/2008)
• The Mix Tape Gift, Remixed as USB (5/14/2008)
• Guy Gift Guideline #7: Inspire Show and Tell (2/10/2008)
• Guy Gift Guideline #6: Go with Manly Gifts (2/9/2008)
• Guy Gift Guideline #5: Consider Retro (2/8/2008)
• Guy Gift Guideline #4: Give an Adventure (2/7/2008)
• Guy Gift Guideline #3: Select Gifts from his Interests (2/6/2008)
• Valentine's Day 2008: 12 Gifts for Him (2/2/2008)
• Guy Gift Guideline #2: Choose Playfully Functional (1/31/2008)
• Guy Gift Guideline #1: Tune in for Clues (1/26/2008)
• Seven Guidelines for Guy Gifts (1/22/2008)
• What Makes a Great Gift #2: It's Indulgent (1/9/2008)
• 10 Gifts that Fuel Fireplaces (1/5/2008)

2007

• Gifts from Popcorn Palace (12/28/2007)
• 25 Last-Minute Online Gift Ideas (12/23/2007)
• Gifts for Co-workers: The Office Space Red Swingline Stapler (12/21/2007)
• The Gift of Flickr Photo Sharing (12/19/2007)
• Gifts for TV Show Fanatics (12/16/2007)
• Give the Gift of Charity (12/14/2007)
• Traditional Seventh Anniversary Gifts: Ugg Sheepskin-lined Leather Slippers (10/17/2007)
• Golden Tickets: Giving the Gift of a Concert (8/8/2007)
• Ten Going-to-College Gifts (8/3/2007)
• Movie Night Gift (7/22/2007)
• Twenty-five "1,000-Plus" Book Gifts (7/20/2007)
• Giving Photo Books (7/13/2007)
• Alma Mater Pride: Giving College-themed Gifts (6/12/2007)
• Feeling Bullish? Consider the Gift of Stock: OneShare.com Framed Stock Certificates (6/10/2007)
• Gifts for Your BBQ Host (5/29/2007)
• Giving the Gift of Food (5/19/2007)

Give to Quilts of Valor This Fourth of July

Happy 233rd birthday, America! Today I discovered Quilts of Valor at a farmer's market. Quilts of Valor seeks to give homemade quilts to men and women wounded while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. I gave a donation and signed a quilt patch to thank the troops for their service and sacrifice. To date, this non-profit, non-political organization has given nearly 22,000 quilts of valor to war wounded (physically or psychologically) across the country.

Consider donating high-quality cotton fabric or giving online to cover material costs and shipping. With each quilt, we express our gratitude through a gift of warmth for wounded soliders.

Seven Songs About Giving

What if gift giving had a soundtrack? After all, I have an iTunes playlist for the treadmill, so why not giving? After spending a few hours at the iTunes Store, here are seven songs about giving. Links below go to the song download on Apple's iTunes Store.

(Everything I Do) I Do It For You — Bryan Adams
"Take me as I am - take my life
I would give it all - I would sacrifice"

Give A Little Bit — Supertramp (or the Goo Goo Dolls cover)
"I'll give a little bit of my love to you
There's so much that we need to share
So send a smile and show you care"

Give To Live — Sammy Hagar
"Ohhh, you've got to give
You've got to give
You've got to give... to live"

Hush Li'l Baby — Jim Brickman with Carly Simon
"Hush my li'l baby, don't say a word
Mamma's gonna buy you a mocking bird
And if that mocking bird don't sing
Mamma's gonna buy you a diamond ring"

Shower The People — James Taylor
"Shower the people you love with love
Show them the way you feel
Things are gonna be much better if you only will"

The Gift — Jim Brickman
"You gave your love away
I can't find the words to say
That I'm thankful every day
For the gift"

Your Song — Elton John
"If I was a sculptor, but then again, no
Or a man who makes potions in a traveling show
I know it's not much but it's the best I can do
My gift is my song and this one's for you"

Give Hotel Comfort at Home

Bring hotel luxury to your home. Several major hotels sell their linens, bath robes, shower heads and even the beds online, including Westin. Six years ago, my wife and I stayed at Pittsburgh's Westin Hotel, home of the Heavenly Bed and the Heavenly Shower. This bed envelops you in sumptuous white cotton comfort: a Simmons pillowtop mattress, five goose-down pillows, three sheets, down blanket, comforter and duvet. The shower features two heads and offers a curved shower curtain rod, giving six more inches of elbow room. I made sure our home bathroom remodel included a similar curved shower rod. (We chose an oil-rubbed bronze version from Inspirations by Moen instead of the Westin brand).

Browse these web sites for hotel comfort gifts for home. High-end linens make a fine second anniversary gift. (Cotton is the traditional anniversary gift.)

• Hilton to Home
• Hyatt at Home
• Shop Marriott
• Omni Hotels at Home
• The Ritz-Carlton Shops
• W Hotels: The Store
• Distinctly Waldorf (The Waldorf=Astoria)
• Westin at Home (also Nordstrom, pictured above)
  
• Wyndham at Home

The Well-Traveled Gift: Moleskine City Notebooks

Know someone who's traveling this summer? While you can't give them a passport, you can give the next best thing: a Moleskine travel notebook. Moleskine (pronounced mole-ah-SKEEN-ah) makes premium notebooks featuring a black hardcover, thread-bound spine, ribbon bookmark and elastic band to keep the book closed. Beginning in 2006, Moleskine offered pocket-sized city notebook editions, including city and transit maps, plus an index of streets for many popular travel destinations.

Amsterdam Athens Atlanta Barcelona Beijing Berlin Boston Brussels Chicago Copenhagen Dublin Florence Frankfurt Hamburg Hong Kong

Istanbul Kyoto Las Vegas Lisbon London Los Angeles Madrid Miami Milan Montreal Moscow Munich New York Paris Philadelphia

Prague Rome Saint Petersburg San Francisco Seattle Stockholm Tokyo Torino Toronto Vancouver Venice Vienna Washington, D.C. Zurich

I keep a Moleskine Large Sketchbook for drawing up and scribbling down my ideas. I like the notebook's sturdy feel in my hands with its durable cover and thick cream-colored pages. I'd love even it more as a Paris journal, sketching from a bistro overlooking the Seine.

I See Pirate People: Birthday Gifts for My 5-Year-Old Nephew

Growing up, one of my favorite play-acting personae was the pirate. As a five-year-old, I dressed up as a pirate for Halloween, brandishing my imaginary sword. The pirates were the arrgh-growling rebels, charting their own course. Parents dare not tell a pirate "No" or "Put that down" or "Time for bed." But I do remember a rule against pirate sword sticks in the house.

So when my young nephew said I had pirates lurking in my backyard, I was pleased. For his fifth birthday, I chose pirate-themed gifts from toymaker Melissa & Doug:

• Melissa & Doug wooden pirate chest with skull latch, bandanna, eye patch, loot bag and doubloons.
  
  
• Melissa & Doug 100-piece Pirate's Bounty floor puzzle.

I like the heirloom quality and durability of Melissa & Doug toys. And I hope my nephew doesn't mind a few pirates in his backyard.

Gift Favors for Vintage Havana Party

This past weekend, Cuba came to our patio. My wife and I teamed up with her three sisters to celebrate their father's 70th birthday with a vintage Havana surprise party. None of us are Cuban, but the party theme gave a good excuse to serve mojitos. (And I got to wear a guayabera shirt.) We offered two gift favors to our guests.

When I think Cuba, I think cigars. We opted for milk chocolate cigars, keeping it healthier and legal. The chocolate cigars are wrapped in gold foil with an imprinted generic cigar band. To customize, I picked up one-inch-wide round labels (Avery 5410) from OfficeMax. I downloaded the Microsoft Word template from Avery.com. Then I added a picture of my father-in-law to each label on the sheet and printed the label sheets through my HP DeskJet printer. We applied round labels with his smiling face across the band of each chocolate cigar. To display to guests, we arranged the personalized cigars in an old wooden cigar box.

The second gift favor doubled as a table arrangement and a favor: lucky bamboo. Bamboo is plentiful in Cuba, used for furniture, fences and handicrafts for centuries. My sister-in-law bought live bamboo shoots, and she wrapped them in burlap and jute string. We set the lucky bamboo plants in wooden cigar boxes, lined with gray pebbles. Each leafy bamboo arrangement included a small scroll explaining care and how some value bamboo for its luck in bringing wealth.

I didn't realize that bamboo is an indoor plant that should stay out of sunlight. Simply change the one inch of water once a month and watch as fortune shines upon you. Happy birthday, Dad!

Build Your Own Trader Joe's Gift Bag

I love Trader's Joes. For the uninitiated, this grocery store chain offers its own private-label products with high quality, low prices and great service. The store is practically a tourist destination. My wife's uncle and aunt drive almost 100 miles into another state to reach the nearest Trader Joe's.

If you know another Trader Joe's fan, assemble a TJ's gift bag. (See if a store is near you.) Start with the colorful, reusable Trader Joe's tote bag (ranging from 99 cents to $4). Then fill the bag with your TJ favorites. Or try choosing products based on themes like breakfast time, just snacks, taste of Italy, south of the border, Asian favorites, or chocolate lover.

My Trader Joe's dream gift bag would overflow with my favorite non-perishable products:

• Spicy and Tangy Almonds
• A bottle of Charles Shaw Chardonnay (a.k.a. "Two Buck Chuck")
  
• Pita Bite Crackers
• Peanut Butter Filled Pretzels
• Truffle Brownie Mix
• Olive Tapenade Spread
• Triple Ginger Snaps
• Baked Jalapeño Cheese Crunchies

As a bonus gift bag item, visit Amazon.com and buy Cooking with All Things Trader Joe's by Deana Gunn and Wona Miniati.