They say gifting is one of the five love languages and I would take giving (or receiving!) gifts over acts of service or physical touch any day (though I’m not opposed to those). I really love giving gifts—I get a rush from the buying to the wrapping to the gift exchange—and, of course, it makes me feel connected to those I love. The holidays are inevitably the biggest gifting opportunity of the year and thank God, Vogue Shopping is here to support my every gift-giving whim and wish from Comme Si socks for the fashion girlies in my life to Dorsey lab-grown diamond drop earrings for my sister. This week on the podcast, we invited Vogue’s senior market editor, Maddy Fass, and senior beauty shopping writer, Kiana Murden—both masterminds of the Vogue.com gift guide bonanza–to share what they are gifting, what they are hoping to receive and what you should think about gifting yourself and others this holiday season.
Naturally, I had a lot of thoughts on the matter as well. Personally, I keep a holiday gifting Google doc with a list of everything I am thinking about buying for friends and family (once purchased, a thing gets bolded). My gifting doc is broken into different sections: family, friends, kids, pets, hostess gifts. (Previous years’ lists are readily available in my Google Drive so I can, for example, make sure I don’t get my mother-in-law monogrammed pajamas two years in a row.)
Kiana waxed poetic about a subscription to Remedy place for their cold plunge challenge and feels passionately that fragrance is a consistent crowd-pleaser–don’t sleep on Bottega Veneta’s Déja Minuit, which is exquisitely seated on a pillow of verde alpi marble. Last year, Maddy got her boyfriend Flamingo Estate honey sourced from LeBron James’s home; the Ed Ruscha one is on my hostess gifting list this year.
For other holiday hostess gifts, I’m going to be ordering Solid Wiggles cocktail jello cakes and House & Parties’ marbled crackers. Or trompe l’oeil gifts of all varieties: There’s an upside-down cake candle, a handblown glass camembert Christmas tree ornament from John Derian, and even a croissant lamp, made out of an actual croissant! I can’t resist a pun.