By: Mikey Rox*/Special to TRT—
Holiday gift buying for LGBT people is difficult at best, anxiety-riddled at worst. What do you get the him, her or them who already have everything with specific tastes to boot? Play into stereotypes – that’s what. Identify where your favorite queers fall on the spectrum of zero to glittered unicorn then shop this list of cherry-picked presents.
The Instagram Thirst Trap
2(X)IST’s soft, muscle-hugging Essential Cotton One-Piece Union Suit – the horizontal printed stripes of which optically flatter waists slim or a bit wider – accentuates all the right areas for maximum thirst-trap potential, but gay-owned Sheehan & Co.’s thigh-bearing Drop Shoulder Onesie is for the real showoffs. $59, 2xist.com; $140, sheehanandcompany.com
The Millennial Culture Vulture
Hundreds of classic and contemporary works were cultivated to create a revolving gallery of established and emerging artists for Depict Frame, a 49-inch 4K Ultra HD digital canvas that works with a subscription-based app ($20/month but a complimentary collection is included) to instantly turn any living room into the Louvre. $899, depict.com
The Host With the Most
Tequila gets a more sophisticated treatment than it’s used to in Pernod Ricard’s limited-edition Avión Collection by Waterford, featuring a luxury decanter and rocks glasses crafted by the famed crystal manufacturer, plus a 750ml bottle of Avión’s award-winning Añejo. $399, reservebar.com
The Perpetual Activist
Raising respectful children who turn into respectful adults is harder than it looks (at least in Hollywood, and Washington, D.C., and most red states), but The Little Feminist hopes to reverse that trend with its children’s book and activity subscription focused on diversity and gender equality – a much-needed resource given that over the past five years only 31 percent of children’s books featured female central characters while a paltry 13 percent featured a person of color. Change the world one kid at a time with three- or six-month subscriptions. $105-$200, thelittlefeminist.com
The Dapper Dandy
Leather-strap embossing allows you to personalize the modern minimalism of newly launched Washington Square Watches (the navy-faced Greenwich Gold is a piece to behold), or stick to tradition with London-based Oliver Coen’s polished subdial pieces presented in a signature black box. $155, washingtonsquarewatches.com; $190, olivercoen.com
The Gotta-Have-It Gaymer
The only mobile device controller to connect directly to Apple’s Lightning and Android’s USB-C ports for zero latency gaming, Gamevice – compatible with over 1,000 games and apps, including Street Fighter IV, NBA2K18 and The Walking Dead – also works as a controller for drones and robots (or so the AIs let you think). For stay-at-home console players, pick up holiday hot-tickets Destiny 2 and Call of Duty: WWII, based on the historical events of Operation Overlord and set in the European theater. $100, gamevice.com; games – $60/each, gamestop.com
The Loveable Lush
Craft beer connoisseurs can enjoy their hobby in the comfort of their homes thanks to Pico Model C, a countertop-brewing appliance that delivers five liters of liquid gold in about two hours, while the amateur mixologists on the other side of the bar whip up precisely portioned jigger-free cocktails with the Perfect Blend Smart Scale (which is great for healthy smoothies, too). $549, picobrew.com; $100, makeitperfectly.com
The Uber Gay
Before he starts kissing ass and taking names at the 25th Winter Party in Miami Feb. 28 to March 6 (this is your cue to buy him tickets!), he’ll tap into his inner gayby to style the queens in RuPaul’s Drag Race Paper Doll Book, featuring 10 illustrated punch-out dolls plus costumes for eight winners and two all-stars, including Sharon Needles, Bianca Del Rio and Alaska Thunderfuck 5000, among others. $25-$2,000, winterparty.com; book – $13, amazon.com
*Mikey Rox is an award-winning journalist and LGBT lifestyle expert whose work has been published in more than 100 outlets across the world. He splits his time between homes in New York City and the Jersey Shore with his dog Jaxon. Connect with Mikey on Twitter @mikeyrox.
[This story was published on Dec. 7, 2017].
We had a friend get us a sundial gift certificate for our wedding and it was a great gift, it allowed us to have a custom indoor sundial (it is a clock that uses the sun to tell time) made especially for our family room, to point the same direction that our window does. I don’t remember what it is called but you can find it online – it is designed to sit indoors on the window sill and make prism rainbows in the room when the sun shines, and we personalized ours with special date lines on it that the time shadow follows on our anniversary and our birthdays each year. It even has a mark on the anniversary line that the time shadow touches once a year to celebrate the actual time we got married! Honestly, it is amazing to watch it work and it tells perfect time, and it was handmade just for us by the guy who designed it. We like it so much that it is now our go to gift for special friends, for whatever reason, but it’s especially perfect for weddings and birthdays, or the holidays when we need to travel.