We understand that the holidays are going to be EXTREMELY different this year. This is something we accepted months ago, and have been trying to make the best of it by planning to shop small, and support some of our creative friends with their wares and offerings.
Nerdbot has been putting together several different gift guides which you’ll see roll out in the next few days. They’ll cover different areas, like gifts for kids, gamers, and so forth.
This particular list is one compiled of items that will make even the most difficult to shop for nerd a breeze, and support some small businesses at the same time.
Super Nerdy Oven Mitts (and more!) from Nerdy Novelty Design
While not strictly JUST oven mitts, you can get face masks in pretty much any of their available novelty fabrics, as well as aprons, steering wheel covers, MASKS, and more! You can see their available stock on Etsy here, and keep up to date with sales and such on their Facebook here. Sonia even does custom orders!
Paint Your Own Bathbomb Kit from Pop Fizzion!
We love everything we’ve tried from this specialty small business, and this idea is just too cute not to share. You can read their post about available shapes for the kits on either their Facebook page here, or their website here.
You only have until Monday, November 23rd to order for garanteed shipping by December 1st for these kits though, so make sure you do that today.
Handmade Nerdy Pendants from Occasional Geek!
We found Occasional Geek a year or so ago on Instagram, while looking for Princess Leia gift options (for ourselves, not gonna lie), and have just fallen in love with everything Rachel designs. From “Star Wars” to “She-Ra” and even the late great Ruth Bader Ginsberg– you can kind a handmade piece for any level fan in your life. Check through Occasional Geek’s Etsy store here.
Fashionable Nerdy Options
We’ve brought you updates on Gold Bubble Clothing before, and their beautiful selection of leggings and more really are worth mentioning again.
There’s also Castle Corestry‘s wide variety of items (both off the rack and custom made!).
And we can’t forget Volante Design‘s INCREDIBLE “Star Trek” jackets.
Build out your Viking hoard, no pillaging required.
For handmade and beautifully designed Viking jewelery (as featured on HISTORY’s “Vikings,” and soon-to-be-seen on the spinoff series too), The Crafty Celts is our go-to. Beautiful arm rings, torcs, hair trinkets and more, everything offered by the company is designed (and pretty much built) by Danny Hansen.
If you get a Viking a torc, they’ll need a horn of mead to go with it. We recommend WhereTheGodsLive hand carved horns. Just LOOK at these beautifully crafted drinking vessels!
Experiences, live events, and more!
How about some experiences (because once we can all safely do things together again, it’s gonna be incredible!) like live theater, concerts, immersive events, and once-in-a-lifetime themed weekends? Here’s some options for those:
Wasteland Weekend
If you’ve always wanted to live out your “Mad Max” post apocalyptic fantasies in a super immersive (no really, EVERY SINGLE PERSON has to be in theme to attend) way, then Wasteland Weekend is for you. Like many in-person events, they had to unfortunately cancel what would have been their 11th consecutive annual event due to the ongoing worldwide pandemic. And like many other events that you may want to support, even during this unprecedented off season, you can do that by purchasing tickets for a future event. Wasteland also has a brand new sister event on the horizon, a futuristic cyberpunk immersive event called Neotropolis. This one also, sadly, was cancelled due to the pandemic, but it too also has tickets available for a future date.
Theaters
Look around in your community to see how you can help live performance venues. Several theaters are doing gofundmes, or offering streaming live digital events for the price of a ticket. Unfortunately, there isn’t really a one-stop-shopping option to help out everyone.
Conventions
We know it really, REALLY sucked to have all our favorite events suddenly off the calendar, but the only way we can make sure they come back (aside from, you know, WEARING YOUR DAMN MASKS PROPERLY) is to support them by purchasing passes and merchandise now.
Some events are still overing virtual conventions, with panels, meet and greets, and even Maker’s Workshops (like this one from SiliCon with Adam Savage).
Non profit conventions (like DragonCon) and the like need our support, not to mention the numerous local single-day events in your state and community.
Streaming Services
And, of course streaming services. Think about paying for a full year of a subscription for someone- for the horror lover there’s Shuddder; for the film lover there’s the Criterion Channel; for the theater kid or musical lover there’s Broadway.com’s streaming option.
Homestar Runner
Ok, this one is silly but we’ve GOT to add it because Adobe Flash is going away by the end of 2020, and that means the internet CLASSIC of Homestar Runner won’t be playable anymore on certain devices. So, a collection of the Strong Bad Emails on DVD are just the thing.
If you know of a small, geeky or nerdy business that should be on one of our lists, please let us know! We’d love to spread the word.
Happy holidays, and please- be smart and safe.
