5 Practical Gifts for 2023

Do you know someone who likes practical gifts? Then these timely recommendations are for you given that Christmas is on the horizon. If none of the below recommendation strike your fancy, then there’s also the list that I made last year. The nice thing about practical gifts is that they tend to remain good gifts from year after year. This year’s list mostly concerns home-goods.

#1: High Lumen Candelabra Bulbs

I didn’t build my house. And whoever installed the light fixtures had the poor foresight of choosing ones with candelabra bulbs (smaller bulbs with smaller plugs). They are much less bright. I like a nice bright room because it makes everything feel cleaner, neater, and there’s always enough light. I can always provide accent lighting with lamps, but the overhead light needs to – well – enlighten the room. I found these 800 lumen candelabra bulbs and they are pricey, but they are better than the daily resentment of a disappointing overhead light.

#2 Worm-Gear Clamp

If you liked last year’s custom length Velcro recommendation, then you’ll also like this year’s worm-gear clamps. Have you ever needed a heavy-duty fix that’s also fast and easy? It’s the same clamp that’s used in to affix dryer exhaust ducts. It’s great for any project that needs a quick and secure solution. It’s super easy if you have a drill, and relatively easy if you just have a screwdriver. I used mine for some mechanical elements of my golf card.

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A Gauche Gift

We’ve written about gifts before.

  1. We’ve written posts recommending Christmas gifts (here and here and here and here).
  2. I wrote that gifts might be good for the macroeconomy.
  3. Joy Wrote about birthday presents at school parties.
  4. James wrote about considering supply chain status when ordering a gift.

Michael Maynard and I wrote about giving a good gift. A good gift is one in which the giver has an information advantage. Gifting an object or a service can provide a consumption bundle to the recipient that they didn’t know was even possible or that they didn’t know that they would prefer. They would have chosen the items themselves, if only they had known about them. Giving a gift card can be similar if the recipient did not know about the vendor previously. Cash is a good gift when the giver does not have an information advantage over the recipient.

In our previous post, we showed diagrammatically that ‘better off’ was indicated by the higher utility. But this spurs an important question:

Can good gifts cost the giver zero dollars?

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