Holiday Gift Guide

W hen it comes workplace gift-giving, stick with your regular on-the-job process — don't overthink it. You can't go wrong with a generic gift — small poinsettias, chocolates or a festive bottle of red — but your Secret Santa offering doesn't have to be boring. Ten Thousand Villages has a wealth of unique, fair-trade ornaments that will fill the bill and suit a modest budget. Pack up a scented cinnamon-bark tree from Vietnam with a tiny ornament for under $20. Choose a handmade crafty fox in a knitted scarf from an artisan in Nepal for $16, or go for a felted Santa or snowman for a few dollars less. Neatniks will appreciate California roll socks — they look like sushi when rolled up in their box, and cost just $18 at Urban Outfitters, where you can also pick up a pair of $12 plush tech gloves, equipped with conducive thread that lets the wearer keep on texting outdoors. For the keener in the cubicle, a decorative Stolen Office Supplies box from HomeSense is just the ticket, and at just $6 you can afford to fill it with a few colourful pencils and Post-Its, or pair it with a collection of file folders for every day of the week. Handy purse-size Minimergency kits from Pinch Provisions are packed with 17 mini items, including safety pins, dental floss, stain remover and hygiene products. They're available for about $22 from Chapters Indigo or Anthropologie, which also carries kitschy cool ornamentals, like a paper-wrapped gift soap with a tree on top for $9. If you've never considered turning a plain meatloaf into a Santa Claus portrait on a plate, complete with a cauliflower beard and red-pepper hat, let your creative juices flow for the office potluck — and share the fun with a gift of cookbook author Carol Falkowski's Meatloaf Outside the Pan, which promises to show cooks, "how to transform lacklustre, brick- shaped meatloaf into a stunning dinner entree." For brown baggers, an insulated $17 doggie lunch bag from Winners might be just the ticket, or you might consider giving the gift that keeps on giving: A Winnipeg Humane Society 2017 calendar, or a calendar from the City of Winnipeg Animal Services Agency. Available at 1057 Logan Avenue for $10 (or by mail order for $15), they feature dogs and cats wearing pet licenses and support city adoption and education programs. ❆ A S U P P L E M E N T T O T H E W I N N I P E G F R E E P R E S S - T H U R S D A Y, D E C E M B E R 8 , 2 0 1 6 347 William Avenue Plenty of FREE Parking! Ph: 204-943-0999 Fx: 204-947-3444 www.totallightingsales.ca Where Bright Ideas Begin! LIVE RIGHT MASSAGE & FACIAL SPA SIGNATURE PACKAGE 2.25 Hours of Spa Time for $125.00 + Tax Visit us at liverightmassage.com for details INCLUDES: 15 Minute Aromatherapy Steam 60 Minute Customized Massage 60 Minute Signature Facial 1 Travel Size Dermalogica Product 3 I t's beginning to sound a lot like Christmas. Holiday carols aren't just the tops of the mall music charts, they're the only tunes you'll hear as you jingle all the way through your gift list. And yet, the Christmas CDs keep on coming, with new releases this year from country queen Loretta Lynn (White Christmas Blue), Jimmy Buffet ('Tis the Sea Son), Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood (Christmas Together) and even R. Kelly (12 Nights of Christmas). Traditionalists will enjoy new renditions of Silver Bells, O Holy Night, Let It Snow and other classics from a trio of wise Canucks — Sarah McLachlan's Wonderland, A Jann Arden Christmas and Michael Bublé's Christmas. The albums are available on their own in stores or you can go online to each performer's website to buy them in holiday bundles, packed up with gifts of a cozy blanket and socks (michaelbuble.com), a tote bag, vanilla- scented candle and ornament (sarahmclachlan.com), or mittens, an ornament and a card (jannarden.com). The slightly less traditional music lover might enjoy a couple of newly released live albums from the Frank Zappa vault, including two-CD set Chicago '78, which features winter classic Don't Eat the Yellow Snow, or you can get your mitts on a timely reissue of Lumpy Gravy, due on vinyl in mid-December. If there's a passionate Pink Floyd fan on your list — and if that fan has been extra nice, or maybe extra naughty, this year – consider wrapping up new box set The Early Years: 1967-72: Cre/ation. The exhaustive collection includes 11 CDs, eight Blu-Ray discs, five vinyl singles, miles of amateurish concert film footage, appearances by Syd Barrett, a couple of movies and more pyschedelia and memorabilia than you shake a drumstick at — all for about $649 at Amazon.ca. For vinyl fans, the deluxe edition of Metallica's new Hardwired to Self Destruct includes four LPs. And new Rolling Stones album Blue & Lonesome — a return to the band's old-school roots with an assist from Eric Clapton — is available on vinyl as well as CD. Need a turntable to go with that LP? They run the gamut from inexpensive portable record players and machines that let you convert vinyl to MP3 files (the Sony USB Stereo turntable should run well under $200), up to extravagant options that can set you back $5,000 or more. If you don't want to break the bank but do want high-quality sound, there are plenty of options, including a Teac TN300 Series turntable that sits in the $600 range. Of course, nothing beats live music. And as always, the Winnipeg Folk Festival has released tickets in time for holiday giving. You can read all about it at www. winnipegfolkfestival.ca. The performer lineup for the festival, running July 6-9 in 2017, has not been released, but die-hard folkies aren't hung up on the details. Wrap up the tickets with a pair of bongos from the Remo Kid's Percussion line at Long & McQuade — they're made for kids but suitable for adults, and they're colourful enough to stand out from the rest of the herd in the drum circle. And don't forget the stocking stuffers. Along with seasonal fare, music elves delivered new albums in December to cover virtually every genre — blues, country, funk, heavy metal, hip-hop, pop and rock. Some current CD titles to stuff in a stocking: 24K MAGIC - Bruno Mars GUNSLINGER - Garth Brooks 57TH & 9TH - Sting STARBOY - The Weeknd HARDWIRED TO SELF DESTRUCT - Metallica BLUE & LONESOME - Rolling Stones PEACE TRAIL - Neil Young DARKNESS & LIGHT - John Legend HAMBURG DEMONSTRATIONS - Pete Doherty Fair-trade ornaments, text-friendly gloves and sushi roll socks meet the secret santa requirements. So do gift soaps, office gear, doggie lunch bags and fundraising calendars. An extravagant box set for die-hard Pink Floyd fans, Winnipeg Folk Festival tickets, new vinyl and a turntable to play it on, holiday chestnuts, heavy metal and funk … there's a musical charm for everyone on your list.

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