The 2025 Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide [Special Edition]

Dear Fellow Non-Obvious Thinker,

Happy Thanksgiving to all my readers in America – and those who celebrate around the world. I’ll be hosting my family here and the day after is Black Friday – when everything goes on sale. So this week you’ll see my annual Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide with a few products that caught my eye throughout the past year.

As I share in the full presentation, it’s tempting this time of year to focus on all the stuff (and deals) that you can find. Remember the best gift you’ll ever be able to give anyone is your time, so even as I share my guide to a bunch of stuff you could buy … I will be trying to find my own balance between spending money and enjoying friends & family.

I hope you’ll do the same.

Enjoy the suggestions this week and stay curious!

This Week’s New Videos …

The 2025 Non-Obvious Holiday Gift Guide [Special Edition]

1. Kodak Charmera Digital Camera Blind Box Collection

Nostalgia is big right now and Kodak has been making a resurgence over the past year. Sales of film are growing and this Kodak Charmera Digital Camera Blind Box featuring a mystery camera has been so popular it’s sold out three times already. The brand promises to have more in stock next week, so if this sort of retro gift is perfect for someone in your life, bookmark their main product page and check back often to get yours before it sells out again!

2. The Original Flight Flap

If you’re a traveler who appreciates the most minimal items to help you travel light, this Flight Flap from Folden is the ultimate addition to your travel bag. Super light, folding flat and wonderfully useful in lots of situations – this is an absolute must-have and a great lower priced gift for a secret Santa or any other sort of celebration where you have a $15 max to spend.

3. The U.S. Mint Uncirculated Coin Set (Including 2025 Discontinued Pennies)

After years of debate, the U.S. government finally discontinued the penny, which has made the 2025 Lincoln penny a hot item among collectors. In this set of uncirculated coins from the U.S. Mint, you can get all the coins in perfect condition … ideal for collectors, anyone curious about the mysterious discontinued penny or those patient hobbyists ready to buy this and keep it for a few hundred years as a family heirloom that will *hopefully* be worth something more.

4. Bodypark Atom AI Fitness Companion [Kickstarter]

You just have another few weeks to get your backing in for this Kickstarter product being pitched as the “world’s first AI fitness companion.” The Bodypark Atom is a video assistive device that helps you make sure you have the proper form when doing any sort of exercise. For anyone who has tweaked a muscle, been caught with subpar form, or doesn’t have a trainer nearby to help correct their form, this can be a super useful device. Plus, the design looks great.

5. Montblanc Digital Paper

You could get a digital paper tablet from reMarkable, but if you’re seeking something a bit more upscale – Montblanc recently released their own “Digital Paper” tablet with a signature pen for digitized notetaking. The initial reviews of this are solid and the packaging (and unboxing) are definitely a premium experience … which should be expected given its price tag is just under $1000.

6. Classic Reinvented Board Games

There are games that many of us will recognize from our youth, but this year I saw several of them reinvented in some way. There’s a completely diabolical version of UNO called “No Mercy” where there’s actually a “Draw 10” card—perfect for the most ruthless of your family members. Monopoly and Scrabble did a mashup where you can play both games simultaneously on one board. And on a recent visit to a farmer’s market, I met a guy who created a reinvented version of Chess called ChessPlus where you can merge any two of your pieces together to create a new piece that has the powers of both.

7. Delayed Gratification Slow Journalism Magazine

Slow journalism is the opposite of a quick take and Delayed Gratification is one of my favorite magazines that focuses on returning to stories that other news outlets leave behind as they chase the next “breaking” story. For anyone in your life who loves an unusual take on stories of the day, supports quality journalism or just loves a beautifully designed and printed magazine, a gift subscription for Delayed Gratification is an ideal choice. The world needs more slow journalism like this.

8. Burlap & Barrel Spice Sets

Yes, I admit the branding of the bottles and gift sets pulled me into this one, but sometimes you just need a practical gift that looks great. All the spices from Burlap & Barrel are customizable, and their pre-designed gift sets look great too. For a gift that works equally well for a professional colleague, a client or a team member – this site has some great options and as an added bonus, their social impact work is pretty impressive too.

9. Lego Star Trek Enterprise

This was one of my early posts over on the resurrected Digg.com platform when I was testing it out and it was a hit among the tech-savvy community there. Not surprising. It’s hard to believe this is the first Star Trek branded LEGO set ever … but it’s the perfect option for the Trekkie in your life or anyone who might appreciate a complex LEGO set that will take them at least a few days to get through.

10. Adidas FIFA World Cup Ball

World Cup Fever is officially starting with the final draw just over a week away happening December 5th. For the football (soccer) fan in your life, there is no better gift than the actual competition game ball named Trionda and made by Adidas. The backstory of the physics and math behind the manufacture of the ball is quite fascinating too. With ticket prices surging for actual games, the ball may be the closest many people get to the experience of the games and thankfully there are several versions of the ball at various price points so at least this one FIFA World Cup related gift is actually affordable too.

BONUS – IDEAPRESS BOOKS

Over the past year, I’ve been lucky enough to work on a number of books with our Ideapress authors, and they are all wonderful gifts to share with anyone. Books in general are probably my favorite gifts to give and so I’m always surrounded by them. Nothing compares to a thoughtfully gifted book as a way to share a message with someone. Aside from these Ideapress titles, we’re just two weeks away from making a big announcement about our Longlist selections for the Non-Obvious Book Awards. I’ll be featuring those by early December in this newsletter, but in the meantime – check out the Ideapress website for details on all the books pictured above. And if you haven’t picked up a copy yet, or want to help share the message of Diwali with a local school board in your area, check out my wife Chhavi’s book A Kids Book About Diwali as yet another great holiday gift book to share.

How are these stories curated?

Every week I spend hours going through hundreds of stories in order to curate this email. Looking for a speaker to inspire your team to become non-obvious thinkers through a keynote or workshop?
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