Previously: 2014 Gift Giving Guide

Do you want to give a present to the Antipodean squid, penguin or shark in your life? Well, do we have the gift guide for you.

Stephanie Cried with Laughter:

Change habits now to avoid Christmas Day family drama, clinical psychologist urges.

“We expect it’s going to be particularly joyful or pleasant and then we’re disappointed when it falls short.

“It can be a time when people drink too much and that can loosen constraints over what’s said and people can become too direct.”

For All

Some awesome Aussie charities you should give to at Alpha Reader.

They’re sold out for 2015, so this is the time to subscribe for updates about the 2016 edition: The Ugly Xmas Rashie.

(Random Digression By Liz: My dad, being super-duper-Catholic, used to get really crook at us for shortening “Christmas” into “Xmas” — he said it was disrespectful and also a slippery slope to secularism.  Imagine my surprise when, last year, I got a tasteful religious Christmas card … with “merry Xmas” scribbled inside in Dad’s writing.)

Anyway, yes, Ugly Xmas Rashie, because why should Northern Hemispherians have all the fun and also have reduced risk of skin cancer?

Good Spender, an online marketplace for Australian social enterprises. Perhaps a bit late for 2015, but still good times.

Tiny People Who Are Still Developing Cognitive and Motor Skills

Teaote and the Wall by Marita Davies. A picture book about Kiribati, and climate change, and it is totally adorable.

Catherine the Great: An Art Book For Kids, a nifty tie-in with the National Gallery of Victoria’s Catherine the Great exhibit.  (Of art she owned, not portraits of her.)  Who doesn’t love Russian history?

Make Me Iconic Melbourne stacking blocks, because it’s never too soon to instill a lasting fear of Luna Park’s Mr Moon.

Larger People Who Have The Motor Skills Down But Are Still, You Know, Growing And Learning Every Day, But More Importantly, Can Legally Be Given Alcohol

Our ABC is oppressing us by not having Ready for This out on DVD yet, but in fairness, it is still airing.  A season pass is $19.99 on iTunes, so support excellent Aussie indigenous teen dramas.

Cranky Ladies of History! It’s a book, it’s about cranky ladies, both Liz and Steph have stories in it.

The Handbook: Surviving and Living with Climate Change. Also a book. Steph will be giving this book to people, hahaha.

GIN. No Award’s official Gins are currently West Winds, a gin from Margaret River; and Four Pillars, a gin from Healesville.  (No Award’s unofficial gin is from Aldi. Look, it’s smooth and cheap, some of us are on a budget, etc.  But maybe don’t give it as a gift, except possibly to someone you don’t really want to give a gift to.)

Alexander Hamilton by Ron Chernow: for the friend whose brain has been eaten by the musical inspired by this book.  (Liz is 35% through it, and really enjoying it despite generally not being interested in US history.)

A Treasury of Cartoons by First Dog on the Moon: for the politically active native animal in your life.  Readings Carlton also sells the First Dog plushies, if you’re in that area.

Speaking of First Dog plushies…

Lin Beifong pre-painted PVC kit.  Because who doesn’t need a plastic statue of a cranky middle-aged Asian lady in their house?  (But seriously, this is an excellent quality statue, and Liz gets excited on those rare occasions when middle-aged lady-characters are the first to appear in a new merch line.)

If it’s a plastic statue of a cranky young Asian lady your house needs, for many dollars, Officeworks will create 3D-printed versions of actual people, and Liz is quite sad that it only just occurred to her to sell tiny mood Stephanie dolls through the non-existent No Award store.  Let’s get on that.

In the meantime, you can give the gift of yourself!  In tiny plastic form! To everyone! That’s not weird at all!

Go above and beyond for the Harold Holt fan in your life with a copy of My Life and Harry by Zara Holt.  It’s so weird how that’s out of print.

The complete Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries, seasons 1 – 3. Support Your ABC, watch a sassy Melbunnie lady investigate murders.

A terrarium. Steph’s KK got her one, it’s clearly handmade, it’s THE BEST. You can make one yourself, it’s pretty cheap, means less consumerism, No Award is all over that business. A Bunnings guide! A guide; another guide.

No Award spent a lot of time obsessed with Make Me Iconic this year. For the tram/Melbourne lover in your life (yourself).

A Museum Victoria membership.  This is only $50 for an adult, or $79 for two adults and two children.  That is almost stupidly cheap.  By contrast, an adult membership to the Queensland Museum(s) is only $39, but then it’s $120 for a family.  (But think about that, too, because museums are great.)

Gifts For People You Don’t Really Want To Give Gifts To

A lot of Aldi liquor is legit good, but imagine the look on your godfather-the-wine-snob’s face when he unwraps his $6.99 cab sav.  (Downside: the amount of time he’ll eventually spend mansplaining that a lot of Aldi liquor is legit good.)

Cactus.  Or any succulent, really.  “What a nice gift,” they’ll say, while the dread plant plots their death.

(Stephanie once suggested that Liz is the only person in the world whose nemesis is the entire succulent family, but that surely cannot be true.)

The complete Phryne Fisher series … meaning the books, not the TV series.  The cactus in its literary form, probably.