Gift ideas for a family

In My Humble Opinion
1

Seems like there was a thread about gift ideas last year but I haven’t run into one this year.

I need some ideas for a family…husband, wife and two college age kids who go to school within 30 miles of home. Looking to spend about $100 maybe a little more.

The gift can be directly for the lady of the family as long as the other members can get some indirect enjoyment out of it.

Perhaps something for the kitchen. FWIW, they aren’t coffee drinkers. Maybe something electronic/entertainment related.

2

I would recommend a couple of board games thrown in with something more serious.

Ticket to Ride and Bananagrams are competitive like Monopoly but many fewer rules and much faster game play. Also a nice mix of chance and luck to keep the game different every time. The success of Settlers of Catan show that college-age+ kids like board games if they are good games.

3

I like the board game idea - or maybe a Roku?

4

Assuming I underatand what it is that’s a great idea and something I was interested in for our family… a good quality way to get streaming content from computer to monitor.

Is that what it is? Are there alternatives?

5

There are sort-of alternatives to Roku. I hear it has the best interface, for Netflix. Which is weird because the interface is sort of clunky.

But you could also get a blu-ray player with internet connectivity. Each one you find will have a different selection of “apps” it can connect to. So some will have Netflix + Pandora + YouTube, some will have Hulu + Amazon + Pandora, Facebook + Netflix + Sony’s proprietary thing, etc.

Two things about those, tho:

  1. Some have built-in wifi and some just have a plug for ethernet (wired internet). If the family has wifi in their house it’ll be easiest just to get them the wifi-enabled ones. Some of them you can buy a separate thingy to attach to it to make it wifi-enabled. Or, they might just have to run a cable to it to hook it up.
  2. Even if they don’t have a HD TV they can use the player, it just won’t show stuff in hi-def. It will look standard-y.

The blu-ray players are cool if they don’t already have a blu-ray player. If they do have one well…that’s a bit of a waste.

I am considering a WD TV for myself. About the same price as a Roku but it will play video streamed from my network.

6

I’ve been sending stuff from Omaha Steaks to my sister and her family for the past few years. I think it cost me like $110 this year w/ shipping for what seems like a pretty decent amount of food. I forget the exact package I got, but they have alot of different deals you might check out. I’m always stuck as to what to get these folks for the holidays, and this seems to be pretty well received.
(Plus I knock out gifts for four people for less than 30 bucks a pop, sorry to sound cynical!:rolleyes:)