The traditional holiday shopping season kicks off with Black Friday on Nov. 27. Assuming you’ve kept your job through the pandemic and still have an income, you could buy your friends and family things they want or need. Or … you can get them something that truly embodies 2020, something they’ll look at in the future and remember what a true delight of a year it has been (or trade-in for water and food rations in the post-apocalyptic hellscape of 2025).
A really nice maskArguably the nicest COVID-19 mask you could possibly ask for is the one Israeli jewelry house Yvel is making for a billionaire from Shanghai. Commissioned for $1.5 million, the mask features more than 3,600 black and white diamonds and 250 grams of 18 carat white gold — not to mention a N99 filter. It’s fancy as hell for something made to prevent you from spewing microbes on the people around you.
[image:1]Assuming you don’t have millions in disposable income, though, you can still find some nifty, yet affordable masks even from fashion designers. For instance, J.G. Indie, based out of San Juan County, New Mexico, was supposed to spend this year showing off his work at several fashion weeks in the U.S. in Europe. But then COVID happened. The silver lining, though, is that he’s spent some of this time making stylish masks that you can find on his website.
Failed campaign memorabiliaIt doesn’t get any more hipster than proudly showing off outdated memorabilia, and you’ll be at peak obscurity if the items refer to something that never actually came to fruition. Now obviously, you don’t want to focus on the Democratic or Republican candidates that made it to the general election in November. A significant number of people still feel hostility toward both, and you don’t want your giftee to have to deal with that.
<PARAGRAPH style=”DGO Breakout text”>[image:2]Third-party and democratic primary candidates, on the other hand, are fair game. It doesn’t seem like the former were ever taken seriously, and the latter have been largely forgotten. Thus, a Howie Hawkins sweater, an Elizabeth Warren mug, or a coin commemorating Andrew Yang’s Yang Gang would be appropriate. That last item is something we found for sale online for $300 — three-tenths of the universal basic income he wanted to give everyone. If you gift it to someone, flipping it may become immediately useful to them in deciding whether to remain your friend.
Plain old suppliesWe’re not out of the woods yet when it comes to the coronavirus and in parts of the U.S., November has been the worst month for rising cases yet. It’s not inconceivable that we all might end up in lockdown again, with everyone quarantining within our houses. Last time this happened, there was a run on all sorts of supplies, most famously toilet paper.
[image:3]This time around, we can prepare for the shortages in advance — by buying everything right now. Is a 48-pack of toilet paper a great gift for the holiday season? Not at first, but if the worst-case scenario happens, your friends and family will thank you later.
Nick Gonzales
