Our 2021 Christmas Gift Guide for Quarantiners
2021 been a super stressful, sucky, rotten, shitty year for many people and for many reasons, and a lot of us just want 2021 to be over with already. In fact, you may have noticed that Christmas decorations are coming up a bit earlier this year, even before Halloween. And that’s okay! With this year being this year, some of us need to take unusual measures to put ourselves in a healthier frame of mind and do what makes us happy — and that includes putting up our Christmas decorations much sooner. In fact, scientists agree! There’s nothing like the Christmas season to activate those warm feelings of nostalgia and childhood, which is something we need now more than ever. So feel free to put up your tree whenever you feel like it, and keep it up until Valentine’s Day if it makes you happy.
And speaking of what makes us happy, what’s Christmas without Christmas presents? There are folks who will tell you that money does not buy happiness, but those folks were not consumers in a 21st century post-capitalist economy. Now more than ever, we deserve to buy things for Christmas, whether they’re for our families and friends — or to just treat ourselves!
Here is a list of stupid shit that might make you happy and should consider buying. Keep in mind that we might get a piece of the action if you happen to buy something through these links, and also keep in mind that these gift ideas are not limited to age and gender, and we’re not going to call this listicle Best Gifts For the Dad Who Has Everything or whatever. Anyone can buy these gifts for whomever – including themselves! If you’re a five-year-old that wants a Dutch oven, treat yourself! If you’re a 72-year-old that wants a Nintendo Switch, go for it! Even if you don’t celebrate Christmas, there’s no reason to exclude yourself from the joy of giving and receiving. We don’t gift-shame here. Presents are for everyone.
Baby Yoda
Baby Yoda is the best. Werner Herzog himself said he is heartbreakingly beautiful, and he was right. Baby Yoda is also adorable, cuddly, darling, cute, endearing, precious, delightful, charming, and lovable, and the star of The Mandalorian on Disney+ deserves every complimentary attributive quality you can think of. That applies whether he is sipping his cup of broth, sneaking frog eggs into his mouth, using the Force with all of his little might, hiding to protect himself from danger, and when he wants the Mandalorian to give him upsies.
Fans of the diminutive li’l womp rat will likewise find Baby Yoda merchandise as varied (there is even a Baby Yoda waffle iron!) as they are adorable and cuddly, and the Disney Store has a great Baby Yoda doll that we can’t wait to get our hands on. Otherwise, Amazon has plenty of great Baby Yoda merchandise you should buy to warm your consumerist heart.
Nintendo Switch
Nintendo products have been great xmas presents for all ages since like 1985. Folks of a certain generation fondly remember unwrapping the original NES and/or the Super Nintendo presents on Christmas morning, and all of the hours of fun had. This Christmas season, treat your children or grandchildren or your partner or yourself to a brand-new Nintendo Switch.
We understand if you already have a Switch, with probably hundreds of Animal Crossing hours clocked thanks to the crazy stay-at-home year 2020 has been. If that’s the case, consider now the perfect time to purchase more games and accessories so you can continue to distract yourself while you wait for a vaccine. May we suggest the Mario Kart Live: Home Circuit with a complimentary Luigi Set Edition! It’s an incredibly fun and engaging method of gameplay where you create an actual in-real-life Mario Kart track in your home! This version of Mario Kart and all its components totally enables you to create a race course inside your house and use the Nintendo Switch to watch the course come to life and play along — Mario Kart style! Make sure you get the Luigi one as well so you can play with a friend.
Of course, there are plenty of other games you can get with your Nintendo Switch. And if you’re feeling nostalgic and wistful for the old 8-bit NES and the 16-bit SNES, there’s always the Nintendo Classics that you can get in for the original Nintendo Entertainment System, as well as the Super Nintendo.
LEGO Bricks
Did you know that you should always write the LEGO brand name using all capital letters? And that you should use a descriptive noun after LEGO and that it should never appear on its own? You’re not supposed to say, “I enjoy playing with legos.” You’re supposed to say, “I love playing with LEGO bricks.” They are serious about this. It’s on page 45 of the LEGO Group’s presentation.
In any case, LEGO bricks and LEGO sets make excellent gifts for any occasion and any individual. They also make great investments, as LEGO sets often appreciate in value more than gold. But they don’t just have monetary worth — LEGO toys are also plenty of fun! They also come in tons of your favorite franchises and brands. There are Star Wars LEGO sets, Harry Potter LEGO bricks, Super Mario LEGO toys, Disney Princess LEGO knickknacks, Jurassic Park LEGO playthings, and Marvel Avengers comics LEGO baubles. Our favorites, though, are the architecture LEGO building kits. Don’t limit yourself to just one! Buy as many as your consumerist heart pleases/can afford!
Big-ass TVs
You’ve probably been watching a lot of television this year, binging on Stranger Things over and over while trying to decide whether to binge The Sopranos, Parks and Recreation, and The Office next. Aren’t you tired of looking at the same pathetic relatively smaller television you’ve been sitting in front of this whole time? Shouldn’t you be keeping up with the Joneses, even though it’s not a good idea for them to have you over to their house? Isn’t it time for you to upgrade to a much bigger television than the one you already have? We agree! In fact, the bigger the better! Gadget heads and electronics nerds can tell you which brand of television is the bestest coolest brand and what the difference between a LED television, QLED, and an OLED one, but we encourage you to get the biggest one your home allows and can afford.
Samsung has an awesome QLED 75-inch smart TV with Alexa built in, while TCL also has a 75-inch smart TV that’s Alexa-friendly and also has Roku built in. If you want to go even bigger, then check out the 85-inch Sony X900H 4K ultra HD smart LED with a game mode to compliment the Playstation 5 that you should also get, or the 85-inch Samsung Q70 flat QLED bad-ass. Sure, they’re pricey, but who can put a price on the hundreds of hours of enjoyment you get from watching movies, binging epic television shows, and playing video games? Whichever one you choose, you surely deserve it.
Air Fryers
Consumerism can make you hungry, especially if you’ve been watching cooking shows on your brand-new big-ass tv and seeing colorful delicious sweets made on The Great British Baking Show in all its high-definition glory. You’re going to want some food to go with your binging and since you’re not going out to restaurants as much lately, why not upgrade your kitchen with more gadgets? Like an air fryer?
Some people will tell you that air fryers are generally glorified convection ovens — and they’re not really wrong. But they’re smaller than convection ovens (and therefore take up less precious kitchen counter real estate), are easier to clean thanks to a handy drip tray, and can cook food a little faster. They also tend to produce crispier food while also mimicking what you’d get frying food (and foodstuffs) in a deep fryer. Some of them are big enough to air-fry a whole chicken! The pictures you see below are some of the highest customer-rated air fryers on Amazon, and it’s hard to really go wrong with any of them. Pick the most expensive one that is the most aesthetically pleasing to you!
Dutch Ovens
While you’re upgrading your kitchen, consider purchasing a cast iron Dutch oven, for the days when you’re feeling like putting a little more effort into cooking and not just tossing frozen French fries into your brand-new air fryer. If you already own a cast iron skillet (and if you don’t, you certainly should), then you’ll love the extra depth a nice Dutch oven can offer. They’re excellent for making chilis, stews, pizzas, breads, cakes, mac-n-cheese, roasts, pies, casseroles, and hundreds of other recipes. What’s more, they come in many different colors that can match the décor of your kitchen! Get a Dutch oven in your favorite color to show off in your kitchen to your guests and visitors and most importantly, to yourself. You deserve a bright colorful kitchen gadget to cook hearty meals in.
Oculus Quest 2 Virtual Reality Headset
The very first English usage of the term “virtual reality” appeared in print for the first time in French avant-garde playwright Antonin Artaud‘s collection of essays The Theater and its Double in 1958, so it’s been a thing in our imaginations for more than half a century, and we’ve been promised accessible mass-produced easy-to-use virtual reality (VR) headsets for like a few decades now. Well, thanks to Facebook, that day has finally arrived! Yessir, with the introduction of the Oculus Quest 2, created by Facebook Technologies, LLC, a division of everybody’s favorite telecommunications company, the fantasy of virtual reality is now a reality.
So what does the Oculus Quest 2 actually do? It’s a headset that enables gamers to explore a completely different world of gaming. You can watch clips of virtual experience, like what it’s almost like to almost actually fly a helicopter or run into a stadium of thousands of cheering fans. You can also use the headset to watch Netflix and YouTube in all their VR glory. It’s a substantial improvement over the first Oculuses, with improved display quality and easier-to-use controls. Unfortunately, if you’re anti-Facebook and enjoy living off their grid, this product is not for you, as the Oculus requires a Facebook account to use.
Still, it’s promises to be fantastic introduction to the world of virtual reality for the uninitiated, and perhaps welcome in a kind of year that everyone has constantly wanted to escape from. Get yours today! Treat yourself! You probably won’t regret it!
Conclusion!
Now more than ever, Christmas season is a time to reflect on your life, focus on the good things, and count all of your blessings and lucky stars. It’s a time to be thankful for what you have (and in some cases, what you hopefully don’t have), and to reach out to your loved ones and tell them what they mean to you. It’s also a time for self-care, and sometimes self-care means buying yourself a shitload of things that will make you happy, if only fleetingly. We here at Content Bash wish you season’s greetings — in whatever form you celebrate — and encourage you to do whatever brings you joy.
