Gift guide 2024: last-minute treasures

By Soncirey Mitchell
and Zach Hagadone
Reader Staff

So, it’s less than a week until Christmas and Hanukkah and you’re looking for last-minute gifts even though you swore you’d be on top of it this year. Online shopping is off the table and the stores are running out of merchandise, but don’t worry, this guide has you covered. Whether it’s a quick DIY or a trip to the local shops, these gifts can be wrapped and ready in under 48 hours.

Build a terrarium

The terrarium was invented by botanist Nathaniel Bagshaw Ward in 1842 and became an instant trend in Victorian England — but we don’t have time for the long, storied history with the holidays fast approaching. Grab any available clear vessel, whether it’s a salsa jar, spice bottle or Nalgene, and give it a good wash.

Head to a garden store and pick up potting soil without added fertilizers, gravel, moss and a few small plants that enjoy high humidity, like African violets, ferns and polka dot plants. Or, since snow showers have been few and far between, take a stroll through the yard — or even the forest — and snag anything that looks cool. Clover, grass and tiny mushrooms are still hanging around. Pick up the gravel and moss while you’re out foraging as well if you don’t want to buy them.

To assemble the terrarium, place a layer of gravel at the bottom to help with drainage. Cover the rocks with a layer of moss to create a barrier, and bury everything in a thick layer of soil. Leave plenty of room for the roots to grow down and the leaves to grow up.

Moisten the soil, then add the plants and lightly water so they settle into their new home. As a finishing touch, add unique decorations like cool rocks, mossy sticks or miniature versions of your friends sculpted from Babybel Cheese wax. Seal the terrarium and hand it off to its new caretaker.

Borax crystals

Instead of dropping $30 on a National Geographic crystal growing kit, wander over to the detergent aisle and snag a box of 20 Mule Team Borax for about $6. You can grow Borax crystals on just about anything — pinecones, books, animal skulls — but the most common choice is colorful pipe cleaners, which can bend into various holiday shapes.

Once you’ve bent the pipe cleaners or harvested the skulls, suspend them from dowels or sticks using long, thin threads.

Next, boil as many cups of water as needed to submerge the objects, stirring in 3-4 tablespoons of borax per cup. Mix until the water can’t absorb any more borax, but if the mixture becomes cloudy, dilute it with more water to ensure clear crystals.

While the solution is still boiling hot, pour it into heat-resistant glass containers that are deep enough to fully submerge the objects. Next, place the sticks on top of the containers so the objects dangle into the water without touching the bottom or sides. Placing fewer objects in the solution will create bigger crystals, as will positioning them closer to the bottom.

Set the solution aside somewhere it won’t be jostled and allow the crystals to grow over 24 hours.

Cast iron cookware

Considering that people have been using cast iron pots and pans since at least the third century C.E., it’s surprising that it only took about a decade or so — from the 1960s-’70s — for most Americans to give it up in favor of Teflon-coated aluminum.

We’ll spare you a synopsis of the heated (so to say) internet debates surrounding whether or not cast iron is worth it, and cut right to the chase: It is.

Sure, it’s heavy. Of course, it requires special care and handling. And naturally it’s difficult to store, but nothing works quite as well on the stovetop or in the oven as a sturdy iron cooking vessel. It conducts heat better than flimsier metals and, if treated properly, is more organically non-stick than the chemically manufactured, industrial alternatives that have taken over most U.S. kitchens since just before the turn of the 21st century.

Because of all this — and a psycho-social yearning for a return to stability and tradition — the cast iron fandom experienced a resurgence during the COVID-19 pandemic and has continued to simmer (sorry). 

That’s good news on a number of fronts: for one thing, there are loads of resources on the internet full of tips and tricks on how to reclaim the lost ancestral wisdom of caring for cast iron; and, you can find used and new cast iron cookware all over the place — from hardware stores to big box stores to outdoor stores (all of which we have in the greater Sandpoint area). We’ve even seen big selections of cast iron at Foster’s Crossing, and you can bet that stuff is super well-seasoned.

Give the gift of the last pan anyone will ever need.

Video game gift cards

The World Economic Forum tells us that the global video game industry will be worth an estimated $321 billion by 2026. So put to rest the worn-out — and frankly snobby — caricature of the “basement-dwelling gamer” living a liminal, disconnected existence on the periphery of “normal” human society. Like it or not, gaming is the mainstream.

Odds are, you have at least one person in your life who would love some financial assistance with enjoying their favorite pastime, and there are gift cards for purchasing titles on any and all platforms.

The undisputed behemoth for PC gaming is Steam, while Xbox and Playstation dominate the console market. If you know anyone between the ages of 9 and 19, it’s a safe bet that they’re into Roblox — that platform alone had 207.14 million monthly active users as of October, and 58% of those users were under the age of 16.

Anyone who’s bought birthday presents for their elementary- and middle-school-aged kids or their friends in recent years is familiar with “Robux,” which is the digital currency (paid for with real currency) that makes the Roblox world go ’round. 

Do a little 11th-hour sleuthing to find out what your gamer(s) play, and stoke them out with some literal fun money that they’ll enjoy long after the wrapping paper is tossed in the bin.

Bonus: Because all of the above-mentioned platforms offer online gift cards, you won’t even need to leave the house to check this one off the “nice” list.