This is the season for gifts.  There will be enormous efforts to identify, purchase, ship, and present gifts in the next few weeks before Christmas.  ENORMOUS efforts.

And most of them won’t be well suited to their recipients.

Here is modest proposal to identify what will be a great gift.  Give something that will be used on Christmas … a year from now.

Here are a few that fit the bill from my life:
Under $10
A real baseball
YoYo
Tonette
Whiffle ball & Bat

Under $50
A Ukulele
Quality Chess Set
Basketball
Fleece jacket
Juggling apparatus

Everything but the jacket has something in common.  They all are used in developing a skill that becomes more enjoyable over time.  The more they are used the more enjoyable it is using them.

Remember that you are in the constant process of trading some time in your life for money.  If some of that money is used to buy gifts you are trading some time from your life for that purpose.

The Independent Penguin only gives great gifts.  I will try to do the same this year.  Will you?