My wife admitted to me that she needed another gift for me the other day, which I understand, as I can be difficult to shop for. I’m not an ascetic, but I don’t crave a lot of stuff, and the stuff I do crave (high-mileage Volvo wagons) is often too expensive to just casually give as a gift.
It’s a conundrum, and I feel bad because she loves books, puzzles, stationery, and other things that are both easy to find and fit neatly into an appropriate holiday price bracket. I like books, too, but how was she to guess that the one I want is a history of the Bretton Woods Agreement?
The one thing I did want was a cast-iron skillet, and it was on sale at Home Depot, which created a bit of an imbalance in our gifts. I don’t think either of us particularly cares about this, but it’s always nice to have a little surprise on Christmas.
I don’t know what she got me, though I now know what she didn’t get me. Not being a car person, she looked for car-related items and quickly decided that maybe this was the wrong avenue to walk down. With all due acknowledgement to Drew Magary, the king of humorous holiday gift guides, here are the gifts she didn’t end up buying but looked at, ranked.
(Also, I’m adding Amazon referral links, so if you buy anything, we might get a commission. FYI. That’s not the point of this, but it would be amusing if someone bought some of this crap.)
Saucemoto Dip Clip
Price: $9.99
Description: Dip Without the Drip – Say goodbye to messy car snacks! With the Saucemoto Dip Clip, every bite is a perfectly sauced masterpiece—no spills, no stress, just responsible dipping.
If there’s one thing I hate, it’s stressful, irresponsible dipping. I realize that sounds like a joke. It’s not. I regularly put kids in fancy cars I do not own and feel the need to protect.
I legit understand this gift and appreciate that the “patented 5-in-1 design securely cradles sauce cups from most major chains.” I’m not sure it does, but I may have to purchase it for myself to test this theory.
Moki Car Door Step
Price: $34.98
Description: Folding Moki Ascent Door Step: Wide enough to accommodate both feet, our patented folding Moki Ascent vehicle step makes it simple to maintain a balanced standing position and eliminates the need for bulky step stools or ladders
At first, I was like: WTF is this? Everyone seems to be getting ads for this on Instagram, and I’m like Steve Zissou, wondering why I didn’t get hit. After looking at more photos, I now understand what it does. It attaches to the u-shaped door latch and allows you to access the roof without a ladder.
I don’t think this is a big issue for new vehicles, as the latch is a heavily engineered part. On something older? I’d be hesitant. Also, I’m tall, so I don’t care.
This seems useful for other people.
Gear Shift Hoodie Cover
Price: $7.99
Description: Showcase Personality and Fun: The car interior accessories features a cute hoodie design that is creatively appealing. With dozens of color combinations options to choose from, it can be installed on your car’s shift knob to enhance comfort and personalize the interior.
Did you know the modern hoodie was invented in Rochester, New York? Given how cold it is there, I am not surprised. I don’t live in Rochester, but downstate is cold enough.
I was legit driving a car with an aluminum shifter on a cold day and cursed the sting of cold metal (I’m a Texan, forgive me my inability to cope with temperatures below 80 degrees). While I have less of an issue with my BMW, I wouldn’t hate this.
12V Car Fridge/Freezer
Price: $165.99
Description: With Compressor refrigeration technology, this 12v car refrigerator could achieve 15 min fast cooling from 77℉ to 32℉ and 50 min from 77℉ to -5℉, keeping your food fresh. No ice needed, no food spoiled, money and space-saving. Dimension: 22.68*12.60*12.97 in, Weight: 22.27 lb, lightweight
I love that your options here are normal road snack foods like apples, soda, and bananas or… prawns, raw beef, and ice cream. That’s a weird party, but I’d go to it.
Also, 32 quarts is too many quarts. I don’t need that much refrigeration in any of my cars, thank you.
Heart-Shaped Blind Spot Mirrors
Price: $6.99
Description: Heart car accessories not only bring a personalized look, but also have an adjustable design. The driver can adjust the mirror according to his driving habits and road conditions. You can easily adjust the mirror angle to ensure that you can see other vehicles behind or in the blind spot to reduce unnecessary risks. The design combines practicality and stylish, and is a good helper for the driver.
If I had a Nissan Pao or Volkswagen Beetle, I would definitely consider this before realizing that anyone who needs a blind spot mirror on a Pao or a Beetle shouldn’t be driving.
Double Rhinestone Car Engine Start Stop Decoration Ring
Price: $4.99
Description: Push to start button decoration ring made of high quality zinc alloy, which is sturdy and durable, and with Double ring crystals on it, making the product dazzling and beautiful for Car Glam Interior Accessories and Unique Women Gift.
My initial thought was what in the Dartz Prombron is this crap, and that’s still a good thought. I’m mostly bothered that this seller thinks this is only for Unique Women. I think a Unique Man could enjoy this as well.
Car Band-Aid Sticker
Price: $7.15
Description: Effective Damage Cover-Up: Our large car bandaid sticker (24*6.2 inches) effectively conceals dents and tough-to-clean stains on your bumper, providing a fun and creative solution to unsightly damage.
I’m hurt that they tried to make the car look like an AI-fied dented BMW since I have a very real dented BMW. Also, I like how the easy solution to a tough-to-clean stain is a gigantic sticker that immediately draws attention to the problem.
Large Truck Engine, Mechanic Repair Set for Kids
Price: $79.99
Description: This realistic yellow repair vehicle playset is a large-sized toy that comes with 56 pieces of parts and repair tools. It also includes a remote control car key with a simulated lock, LED headlights, DIY stickers, and a detailed specification. Each engine part can be taken apart for repair, providing a realistic and engaging play experience.
Honestly, torn on this one. Other than being able to occupy a child by allowing them to screw in stuff, the lack of fidelity to an actual engine is disappointing. Or maybe it’s super accurate to modern cars because the engine is somehow smaller than all the fake plastic crap on top of it.
6-7 Keychain
Price: $7.93
Description: This keychain features a clean, modern 67 graphic in bold red and green — a simple but instantly recognizable nod to the viral Six Seven meme.
As far as memes go, I suppose this one is relatively innocent. It has no secret, awful white supremacist meaning. I am, however, sick of every person I know under 12 saying this any time the numbers 6 and 7 find one another.
Gadget Finger Lights
Price: $26.99
Description: Light is needed everywhere in life. He/She will definitely need finger lights that frees up their hands. Our hands-free flashlight will surely be an amazing mens Christmas stocking stuffers.
It is hard to argue with “light is needed everywhere in life,” but I think I’d prefer to be in the dark. There’s no way this works, right? It seems like the light is not pointing in the direction I’d actually want?
This gift is a bit of a two-fer, though, in that using it would make me feel and look like an asshole.
Maybe I should send her a link to that book on the Bretton Woods Agreement…
Top graphic images: Amazon
Man, I’m feeling warm after all those nuggets. [Turns up fan, blows sauce all over car.]
Given the viscosity of most fast food sauces, I’m imagining you having a leaf blower strapped to your dash in lieu of functioning HVAC.
I have a Jeep YJ. Feeling the air out of those vents and knowing Chrysler’s cheapness, you probably aren’t far off with the leaf blower comment.
Wow, all I got was a bag full of expired Taco Bell fire sauce packets to stick in my glovebox.
The hoodie gear shift cover is awesome. My wife actually bought me the finger lights as a stocking stuffer one year. They are… not good. At least the screwdriver and batteries it comes with are useful.
In her defense, she bought me a Quickjack-type lift this year. Unfortunately, she bought the 7000 pound version, which is way too big and too heavy to use under my tiny cars and in my tiny garage. So its being sold so she can buy me a new toolbox. <3
Damn. If I were closer I’d totally swap. My 5000SLX isn’t beefy enough for the Q7.
In my entire 63 years on this planet I have never received a gift that I remotely liked. Give me a case of beer, or a bottle of Crown, nope never got a damn thing I actually wanted or used. Cash or gift cards people.
The trick, if it is possible, is to give a big gift to someone you love that you can share. Among my best was a trip to the south of France with my girlfriend, now my wife of 37 years. Next year we are flying business class to Europe. She was not in favor of spending so much money, but this time I didn’t ask. When I got a job overseas for 3 years, I didn’t rent out my house so that she didn’t have to move with me to South Korea and could visit when she wanted. That wasn’t as generous as you might think, since my employer paid for my apartment. I’m a lucky to be able to have done these things. I’m much happier giving than receiving. It is perhaps the result of not having much money growing up, but being the beneficiary of the generosity of friends.
If she needs some alternate gift ideas, every dad always wants whiskey stones, hot sauce, and underwear. At least according to every listicle-format guide on “what to get dad for Christmas.”
This is why I really love How to Drink’s anti-gift guide gift guides: we need more pieces on what NOT to buy. (Like tooth-chipping whiskey stones, for a lot of folks.)
Never know these existed and now just ordered a red hoodie gear shift cover for my red car. Damn you Matt Hardigree.
I want something like the start button ring, but not bejeweled. Black button on a black dashboard at night makes it difficult to find.
All the people I know under 12 are also 5 and down so fortunately they don’t know anything about 6-7 and I barely do either!
Lucky you, my 18 month old learned about 6-7 from her aunts and uncles and says it all the time now.
That gearshift hoodie is awesome! Too bad my Maverick has the stupid dial on the console and my other car has a stalk on the column.
My wife, her mother, and I have decided to just do stupid cheap white elephant stuff this year. None of us need anything and we generally buy whatever we want (within reason) when we want it. We decided the stress of trying to figure out “good” gifts really just made the holiday less enjoyable.
My office had a White Elephant gift exchange. After an hour of Machiavellian strategy that left most of my co-workers hating me, I managed to walk away with the coveted mini-toolbox.
I went home to show my GF the spoils of war, but when I did she was crestfallen. “Now I have to find you a new gift!”
Christmas is ruined.
I gave a sweet, high-quality, vintage hammer as a white elephant gift a few years ago. The woman who picked it was utterly crestfallen. Whoops. Someone else stole it from her – I think out of sympathy. Bad luck I think, I know some others in the group would have appreciated it.
We had some good awful holiday coworker exchange. Everyone bought something under $30. You drew lots to pick. You could pick,or take some one else’s gift. I got a gift of 3 ceramic religious elephants that none of my 12 Indian coworkers wanted. However the gift I put in the mix had people taking it from the person who had it at least 6 times. Gift cards or cash people
We started playing games like that a few years ago at family Christmas and I hate it. Watching grown-ass adults literally take presents from kids is enough to make you question whether humanity was a mistake.
I absolutely love the Gear Shift Hoodie Cover. That’s like end-boss cute!Apart from that, I suggest a “non-aggression” pact among all the adults in the extended family: no gifts. We have been doing that for like forever, and it’s so fun to not be stressed out about finding gifts for people that have everything.I don’t have kids of my own, but my niece and nephew did get gifts until sometime in their teenage years, when I just stopped. They are still talking to me. (Sometimes.)
It sounds like Matt, Jason and David’ll be hitting up the post-holiday sales not for their spouses but their kids. David’s isn’t old enough for that engine set yet but DT’ll want to get this version before they have to change the presumably-unlicensed Jeep grille.
Matt and Jason have to get those 6-7 keychains to give their kids in 10 years when “six-seven” has gone past “embarrassingly dated” to being downright nostalgic to them.
My neighbor’s kid has the truck engine playset and it’s pretty cool.
Also, isn’t 67 dead now that it’s broken containment?
Unfortunately not. I was recently at a theme park and the kids in line were still unironically (I think) using the meme.
I despise those rhinestone rings. Beyond being abhorrently tacky, they also block the signal from the vehicle antenna and the key fobs, leading to no-start situations, or “key not detected” issues. I see it all too often in my job, to the point where we’ve added asking customers if they’ve added them to their car on our triage checklist when they call to make an appointment. They’re so dumb!
Also: whoever thinks it’s a good idea to add something that will glare and/or glitter where the operator can see it while operating heavy machinery (like an automobile) needs to possibly be subjected to a 15-minute video loop of flash-bangs going off at random until they realize it’s a bad idea.
But it would match my Daughter’s steering wheel cover (smile emoji).
{ side-eyes in nope }
I love rhinestones and still…nope.
How many puffalumps have been bedazzled?
No.
Rhinestones aren’t soft, and I didn’t get the fun mane clips on either of my Enchanted Puffalumps. :'( Those are like holy grails for ‘lump fans, though: ultra-rare Canadian-market specials that go for a bajillion dollars.
So if you got one of them would you keep it, or sell it to buy all the parshes?
An Enchanted Puffalump? Keep!!!
And the gear selector, and the bedazzled airbag cover, and the vent clips, and and and…
What’s really fun is when you grab the steering wheel (thumbs concentric with the wheel, hands at 9 & 3) and the wheel cover moves but the wheel doesn’t. Blue of rhinestones but the view out the windows doesn’t change. (inset “eek!” emoticon)
You are lucky. There’s a guy at work in his early 20s who not only gets excited when the numbers come up, but he works to make them happen, too. Luckily, he’s not one of my employees.
If he were one of my employees it would be a very short-term situation. 😛
I like the gloves, I have a bit of a flashlight fetish. (Yes, I said flashlight. Not misspelled.)
And I’ve considered the Gear Shift Hoodie Cover, even seen one with the GR logo. That gearshift knob is like an icicle.
I was given the gloves last Christmas. They’re completely useless for any kind of car work. They get in the way, they snag on things, and they have a weird plastic blister on them that makes it so your hands don’t fit where they need to fit.
You’d be better off wearing them to a dance club.
Thanks, I was tempted!
I watched a guy enchant one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen with his silly light up finger dance. Honestly I was entranced too. Those things are no joke.
The absolute BEST light I’ve found for mechanic work is these things. They’re all over the jungle website from 100 different brands. They’re all the same, so just buy the cheapest ones you can find. Just get two cause the batt only lasts about 3 hours.
But as someone who wrenched professionally for 17 years, often cramming myself into awkward spaces on transit buses, you can’t beat these.
I love those things. I get to pretend I’m Geordi LaForge when I’m working on something. My only real complaint is that mine get a little warm when the front lights are on, but not enough to make me stop using them.
I even have one where the side pod detaches and can be used as a standalone flashlight, which is normally a little awkward with headlamps.
While the name is ridiculous Chinese to English pre-AI translation, the Large Truck Engine, Mechanic Repair Set for Kids is pretty damn cool. Somebody should buy one for ~Delmar Tracy!
I had a Pit Change Charger when I was kid and loved it! Never to early to teach your kids to wrench.
I have used the band-aid decal, a white one though, to cover up a dent on a white car, mainly to try and keep water/air from causing it to get worse.
The finger lights I feel like the headband strap style light would work better. Do they make on that looks like car headlights? Feel like that should be a thing, with tail lights on the back!
Shifter hoodie seems like the winner out of the above choices, I also like steering wheel covers for similar reason, in the summer black pleather steering wheel getting baked in the southern heat gets a little toasty.
I made a bandaid vinyl decal for a coworker after she had a boo-boo that she didn’t get fixed, big old dent in the fender. She loved it.
I would be careful putting something like that on any damage down to the metal. Unless it’s perfectly waterproof it may just trap water against it and make the problem worse.
isn’t the shifter hoodie the same as the drink Koozie – maybe use for both?
the problem with the dipping sauce holder is if you hit the edge of the holder just right, it becomes a diving board and flings the sauce out. ask me how I know.
edit: bought the hoodie for my daughter. she’ll love it (and not a car person). and you’ll get the referral. win-win!
Instead of that step thing, just get someone a widdle wadder.
I AM a lil bit firsty…can I hab a widdle wadder?
I was actually eyeing a version of that a while ago. I’m curious if they actually work well or not.
Dipping sauce while driving? Explains some of what I see, and why I only drive for fun.
My kids have been buying me shifter hoodies for a few years. They are great. I wear hoodies often, so that was the inspiration, but I also run a metal shift knob, so the hood is great in the cold and the heat.
Glad to hear these work. I just saw one of these a few weeks ago and decided I needed it, with appropriate logo for my car. But before I bought it I sent the link (was a Black Friday sale) to my spouse and told them to buy it now and hide it until xmas, so they and my offspring could gift it to me.
I also run a metal shift knob and it’s been a pain for years in extreme cold and hot, hoping this does the trick.
My daughter chose 67 for her soccer jersey this year. Which is great because each week, 50% of the audience is new!
True dadgoals are beating them to the punch by sneaking the reference in there. We MUST work together to make Gen Alpha slang uncool.
The other day she saw a 76 gas station in a movie and immediately went into “Seven…Six…” but then I realized she had never seen one before, while I was sitting there wondering when they dropped “Union” from the name.
I don’t have any kids (yet I love dad jokes… I know, it’s a real faux pa situation) but my friend does and he has taken up the habit of singing “8 9 10 11 12” in the style of the Sesame Street counting song every time his kids say 6-7. I need to check in with him to see how successful it has been.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hcx44e2gnfI
Borrowed my FIL’s 12V fridge (that he used to transport refrigerated prescriptions cross country) and fell in love with it. Bought a slightly bigger one and it has become a staple of our camping trips. So nice not to plunge your hand in freezing water to get something at the bottom or risk food getting water-logged.
What do you mean? Water-logged baby carrots are a road trip delicacy.
I’d wear those finger light gloves. Just sayin’
I got some last year. They’re pretty much useless for working on cars… especially in an engine bay.
I was thinking more for finger guns at my nephews, or embarrassing my son in front of his buddies
They are SPOT ON perfect for that. Fire away!
I had a pair of the flashlight gloves for a bit and they were fantastic when working under the car in low light conditions. Then they got really gross and the lights got ruined when I tried to wash them. Great idea. But poor execution
I have some that I was gifted last year. I put them on once, went out to the car, popped the hood, and realized there was no way these were going to be useful there. But I did try. They didn’t fit the tight spots, and they snagged on everything. They now live next to some microfiber rags.
The thing is… you have to use your hands, and while you’re using your hands, the lights aren’t pointed in the right direction.
Yeah I had pretty good luck with them. They definitely aren’t ideally aimed when turning the wrench, but it helped to get the wrench on and such. I liked them.
I’d rather have a headlamp… which is ideally aimed at what I’m looking at, and doesn’t interfere with what I’m working on.
These gloves seemed like a (sort-of) solution looking for a problem.
The headlamp is nice, but there have been many times where there’s a hose or wire or something in between it and my hands so then it just casts shadows on what I’m trying to see which is annoying.
Recharge-able headlamp tends to do it for me.
I’ve got one of those too, but having the light right there at the bolt I was trying to find was nice.
I got one of these on sale a while back. I’m really liking it for getting light into the nooks and crannies of the engine bay: https://www.astrotools.com/product/900-lm-wirelessly-rechargeable-led-slim-light-w-top-flashlight/