Christmas Gifts For Parents
Parents do a lot, and they deserve gifts in return! But whether you’re getting a gift for your own parents, friends of yours who are parents, or whether you yourself are a parent and want to get a gift for your significant other, it can sometimes be hard to find gifts that are truly useful for the recipient.
Today, I’d like to help you figure out what to get the parents in your life for Christmas this year. For this list of potential gifts, I picked items that make the most sense as gifts for parents from the perspective of practicality.
Parents appreciate things that make their lives easier, and all of the items I’ve gathered for this list are guaranteed to do exactly that.
Honeywell Smart Home Thermostat
Let’s begin this list of gifts with a smart home thermostat. This particular thermostat is made by Honeywell, who also produces many other similar smart home thermostats and is one of the leading manufacturers of these devices.
What’s unique about this smart thermostat relative to others is that the background color of the display can be changed instantly. It means that no matter what kind of décor you have in your home or what type of color scheme you have going on, you’ll be able to adapt your smart thermostat so that it fits in no matter where you install it.
Like many other smart home thermostats, this one can give you an energy report, showing you how much energy you used on heating or cooling within a given time period. This thermostat can also offer you tips on how to further reduce your energy consumption based on your current heating/cooling habits.
You can also link your smart home thermostat to a device that uses Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana, or Google Assistant, and then control your thermostat with that device. With this method, you can even use voice commands to change the temperature!
You can also create custom heating/cooling schedules to best suit your needs, and you can even create multiple schedules for different days of the week.
For example, this means that if you spend a lot of time away from home during the week but are usually around during the weekend, you can set a schedule that’s as cost-efficient as possible for when you’re gone and as comfortable as possible for when you’re home.
You can also pair your smart thermostat to a phone app, so you can adjust the temperature quickly and easily no matter where you are in the house. This thermostat comes with a helpful display that can show you plenty of useful information, including the indoor/outdoor temperature and the indoor/outdoor humidity levels.
Instant Pot
If you’re not already familiar with the Instant Pot, then allow me to introduce this awesome piece of cookware to you. The Instant Pot is an electric pot that can pretty much do it all. It’s a slow-cooker, a pressure cooker, a steamer, a rice cooker, a food warmer, a sauté pan, and even a yogurt maker.
What’s arguably best about the Instant Pot, however, is that it boasts a vastly improved cooking time over traditional slow-cookers but can produce food that is just as tender and delicious as anything that has been slow-cooked.
The Instant Pot is available in several different models and sizes, which range from 3 quarts to 8 quarts. I’d recommend the middle-sized 6-quart Instant Pot, since it offers the best compromise between capacity and physical size.
For most people, the entry-level Instant Pot Duo will probably be the one to go for. It offers excellent value for money, as well as two different pressure cooking settings (high and low). It also contains 14 built-in programs for cooking specific types of dishes, including poultry, ribs, stews, soups, beans, porridge, and more.
The Instant Pot is able to monitor the temperature and pressure inside itself, and it can automatically adjust the heat and cook time to ensure that your food is always cooked as perfectly as possible.
The Instant Pot is made from stainless steel, making it easy to clean and resistant to smudges and fingerprints. Some of the components of the Instant Pot are dishwasher-safe too. It’s also safer to use than traditional pressure cookers and contains features like overheat protection and a locking lid to prevent any cooking accidents or equipment failures from happening.
You can also get accessories to go with your Instant Pot, including a new lid that effectively turns your pot into an air fryer.
And on top of all of this, there’s a free Instant Pot app available on iOS and Android devices that contains hundreds of recipes for things you can make in your Instant Pot.
iRobot Roomba
The Roomba is perhaps the quintessential robot vacuum, and it’s certainly the name that first comes to mind when you hear the term “robot vacuum.” There are now several models in the Roomba lineup, from the highly advanced (but also quite expensive) “s” series to the more basic but much more reasonably-priced 600 series.
Let’s check out the Roomba 675. It is the top model in the 600 series, and as such, it offers a pretty great balance between price and functionality.
The Roomba 675 can connect to your home’s wi-fi, and you can create a daily cleaning schedule for your Roomba through the iRobot app. You can even link your Roomba to a device using Alexa and use voice commands to tell your Roomba to start and stop cleaning or have Alexa tell you where your Roomba is in your house.
The Roomba is equipped with a variety of hardware to help it effectively remove dirt and debris from both carpeted and hard floors.
It also contains a number of sensors that allow it to maneuver safely around obstacles and edges (including stairs) to prevent it from damaging itself accidentally.
The Roomba can even detect which areas in your home tend to accumulate more dirt, and it will spend more time ensuring that those areas are as clean as the rest of your house. It also keeps track of your daily cleaning habits, and in time will offer you schedules customized to your preferences. It will also offer to clean your house extra times during particular times of the year, like during periods with a high pollen count or periods where your pets are shedding a lot more.
The Roomba has a battery life of a little over 90 minutes, but don’t worry about having to keep track; when it detects that its battery levels are getting low, it will automatically return to its charging station, dock itself, and recharge.
Other, more expensive Roomba models offer features like room mapping capabilities, increased suction, self-emptying abilities, and improved detection of obstacles. However, the Roomba 675 is a much more budget-friendly option that’s still a highly capable cleaning device.
23andMe DNA Testing Kit
Plenty of people are curious about their family’s or their own genetic heritage; it’s pretty fun to find out what regions of the world your DNA is from and how many different types of people you can trace your lineage back to.
Knowing about your genetic background has a practical purpose, too. A thorough analysis of your genes can tell you a great deal about your general health, and a DNA testing service can tell you if perhaps you’re predisposed to developing certain conditions as a result of your genetics, like type-2 diabetes, celiac, or Alzheimer’s. It can even determine if you’re an asymptomatic carrier of an inherited genetic condition.
Perhaps even more interestingly, DNA testing can also offer insight into your preferences in tastes and smells. It can even tell you if you’ll be more likely to find certain sounds or sensations unpleasant or whether you’re more likely to be musically tone-deaf.
When you mail in your genetic material (in the form of a saliva sample) to the 23andMe testing lab, you have the option of sharing your information with the 23andMe community if you want to, for example, find other people registered with the 23andMe service who might be distant relatives.
However, you can always choose how much of your genetic information you want to share with other 23andMe users.
23andMe offers two different DNA testing kits; one that determines your ancestry and shows you what your various genetic traits are and another that includes all of that plus reports on your genetic-related health. The 23andMe test can also give you details on your Neanderthal ancestry and how many Neanderthal genes are in you.
And if you opt into having your DNA used by 23andMe for research purposes, you’re making a legitimate contribution to science that could potentially help make discoveries that would have a hugely positive impact on the medical community. Personally, I think this is one of the more unique and special gifts you could get for any parent.
Amazon Echo Dot
You might be familiar with the Amazon Echo, Amazon’s brand of smart speakers that feature the voice of the AI Alexa. The Echo Dot is the smaller version of Amazon’s regular Echo device.
This is the fourth and newest generation of the Echo Dot. The biggest change with this generation is that it abandons the old hockey puck design of the old Echo Dots in favor of a spherical, soccer ball-esque design.
You can also have the Echo Dot with an integrated digital clock, meaning it can work both as a smart speaker and a smart alarm clock.
Through the Echo Dot, you can play music or get the latest news, traffic, and weather reports. You can ask Alexa questions about any topic you want, and you can also use Alexa to set alarms, order items online, and even read audiobooks to you.
Most importantly, however, you can get a special version of the Echo Dot called the Kids Edition. The Kids Edition comes in a cute, child-friendly design and also comes bundled with a free year’s subscription to Amazon Kids+.
Previously known as Amazon FreeTime Unlimited, Amazon Kids+ gives your children access to tons of great content and activities.
The Echo Dot Kids Edition can still do everything the regular Echo Dot can do. Your kids can ask Alexa to play them music, read stories to them, and even call approved contacts.
The Amazon Kids+ service also gives you parental controls, so you don’t have to worry about how your child is using Alexa when you’re not around. You can review your child’s activity in the Parent Dashboard, filter any explicit songs from your music stream, and even set a daily time limit so that your kids can’t keep playing with Alexa when it’s past their bedtime.
Amazon Kids+ includes a wide variety of games that your kids can play, which have educational games and games that are just for fun. The service also comes with thousands of hours of audiobooks, including interactive choose-your-own-adventure stories.
All versions of the Echo Dot come with privacy controls, including a button that turns off the Echo Dot’s microphone if you don’t want Alexa to listen to your conversations.
Flyby Massage Gun
Parents have to be pretty active in taking care of their kids, which can easily put a lot of strain on even the fittest and most lively parents. That’s why any parent will surely appreciate the opportunity to treat themselves to a massage every now and then to work out those muscle kinks and find a bit of relaxation.
Of course, actually going to see a massage therapist can be pretty expensive, so having a way to get a massage for free from the comfort of your home would be pretty desirable. For someone in desperate need of a good, cost-effective massage, a massage gun is usually the best solution.
This massage gun from Flyby is one of the more popular and widely-reviewed massage guns on Amazon. It’s easy to see why; it seems to be a great product that performs well in pretty much every category.
It’s lightweight and relatively small, making it easy to hold and use however you want, as well as easy to store and carry with you. It also uses a quiet brushless electric motor to produce power, so it only makes about as much noise as an electric toothbrush.
Despite its small size and quietness, this massage gun is still pretty powerful, capable of speeds up to 3200 rpm, and it can apply a maximum of 50 pounds of pressure. It can also operate on battery power alone, and it’s pretty long-lasting, too; one full charge of the battery will last you for about 4 hours of use.
This massage gun also comes with six different massage heads, so you can really get the kind of massage you need. It contains heads designed for general purpose massages, deep tissue massages, back massages, and massages that target other specific muscle groups.
Stanley Jump-Starter/Air Compressor
Parents need a way to get their kids and their kids’ stuff around from place to place, and a car is usually the best way to do it. But your car needs to start in order for you to actually use it, and one extremely common reason that a car won’t start is because of a dead battery.
Batteries can die all the time due to a number of factors, like cold weather, lights that are accidentally left on, or simply not driving your car very often. But if your car battery dies unexpectedly, it can be an incredible pain to get your car running again, for example, if it dies in the middle of nowhere or if it dies in your garage and you can’t get another car close enough to connect them with jumper cables.
Well, don’t worry, because there’s an easy and highly portable solution; you just need a portable jump-starter/air compressor. This piece of hardware from Stanley is just such a device, and as the name states, it combines both a jump-starter for boosting a dead battery and an air compressor for re-inflating tires, sports balls, and pretty much anything else you might need to inflate.
This Stanley jump-starter comes with a healthy 1000 peak amps of power. It’s also capable of generating a very solid 500 instant starting amps, making it capable of jump-starting pretty much any regular passenger car engine, and potentially even some larger engines like marine engines.
The air compressor portion of this device is capable of 120 psi of pressure, which is about the industry standard for these types of jump-starter/air compressor combo packages. It should be more than adequate for most inflation needs.
That’s not all you get in this device, though. You also get a USB outlet and a 12-volt outlet that you can use to charge a phone or other small appliance, an indicator showing you the device’s charge levels, an alarm that sounds if you accidentally connect the cables to the car battery the wrong way, and a rotating LED flashlight that can help you illuminate dark areas.
You can also charge this jump-starter/air compressor with just a standard extension cord and a wall socket; no extra charging adapters or special cables are needed.
Cuisinel Cookware Set
A good cookware set can help you prepare the best meals every time. And this cast-iron cookware set from Cuisinel looks just about as good as any other, if not even slightly better.
This cookware set contains eleven pieces, consisting of four different-sized skillets, a grill pan with a lid, a pizza pan, a Dutch oven, and even a pan rack to store everything on.
As you may know, cast-iron cookware has several advantages over non-stick cookware. Cast-iron cookware is incredibly durable, and it will last an incredibly long time if you maintain it right and don’t let it get rusty.
Also, cast-iron retains heat a lot better than stainless steel, so it’s better for cooking techniques like searing meat.
Cast-iron cookware also doesn’t need to be cleaned very intensely, and on top of that, cast-iron cookware just looks cool. Just picture a fresh pie being displayed in a real cast-iron skillet, and you’ll see what I mean.
Aside from the aforementioned cookware, with this set, you also get a set of tempered glass lids, as well as a set of silicone holders for grabbing hot skillet handles and a pan scraper. If you know of any parents who are in need of a good set of cookware, then perhaps you should consider giving them a set like this.
Waterpik Water Flosser
Dental hygiene is important for both parents and kids, and flossing regularly is one of the most important aspects of good dental hygiene. But a lot of people don’t floss because it can be inconvenient and even painful sometimes.
If perhaps you know a parent whose child is resistant to flossing, then they may appreciate the gift of a water flosser. A water flosser, like this one from Waterpik, uses a pressurized stream of water that is able to get in between your teeth and blast away any small bits of food that a toothbrush isn’t able to knock loose.
The flosser uses a 5-ounce reservoir as its water source, which is good for about 30 seconds worth of flossing time. It runs off of three AAA batteries, and the battery life should be about 1-2 months, even if you use the flosser every day.
This flosser features two different pressure settings, so you can adjust how intense the stream of water is depending on how sensitive your gums are. It also contains two nozzles so that two people can use this flosser and still be sanitary; you can easily swap between the two different nozzles depending on who is using the flosser.
Conclusion
If you want to give the parents in your life a memorable, practical gift that they’ll be sure to appreciate for a long time, then I’d highly recommend any of the gift ideas mentioned in this article.
All of them are great items to have around the home, and all of them are great ways to help parents deal with the messes, inconveniences, pains, and other assorted challenges that come with raising kids.
Good luck with your Christmas shopping!
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