12 last minute gift ideas. (Because at Christmas, everything comes in 12s).

By JO ABI

The ‘most difficult person to buy gifts for’ crown always goes to my mother-in-law.

Gift failures from me to her include but are not limited to – diabetes cookbooks (those went down like a ‘fart in a spacesuit’ to quote my eloquent husband). A Kindle was another attempt at a brilliant gift except she doesn’t know how to work it and like most people of her generation, mistrusts online anything. I can’t just give her chocolates anymore due to aforementioned diabetes.

Then it hit me. When you have someone in your life notoriously difficult to buy for, just get them more of something they love a lot of.

Let me describe my mother-in-law’s front and back yards…they are filled with assorted figurines, garden gnomes, and statues. I swear, at night, it all comes to life. It’d be cute if it wasn’t so creepy. There’s hardly a patch of grass without a frozen figurine perched on it. So this year she’s getting more creepy creatures to add to her collection. That’s two presents from Bunnings. Now, what to get everyone else?

1. Skylanders Giants

So far I have managed to resist buying anything Skylanders but in my quest to prevent the oldest boys in our family (aged 9 and 8) from the ‘Call of Duty’ craze (a very bloody, violent and addictive war game and apparently the number one selling game in the world), I have decided a bit of cute, adorable, colourful and equally addictive Skylanders is just the thing.

The best thing is that my son isn’t even expecting it but I’ve run out of Spiderman gifts for him.

Skylanders is available for all consoles and is unique in that you get a device that you place the character on and then that character pops up on screen. I have no idea how it works… all I know is that the kids will be playing it all afternoon on Christmas Day, leaving me plenty of time to lie down and rub my very full belly.

Apparently the latest version in the series is Skylanders Giants and if like me, you are a Skylanders novice you can buy a starter pack for $99.95.

2. ‘Educate a girl’ gift from Care Australia

It still astounds me that in developing countries so many young girls don’t get the chance to finish primary school. According to Care Australia’s website, 796 million people in the world can’t read or write and two-thirds of these people are women.

An ‘Educate a girl’ gift from Care Australia is such a great idea for Christmas, especially because it can trigger a conversation in your family about how lucky they are to get to go to school and hopefully sound down daily exclamations like, ‘school is boring’ or ‘I hate school’.

You can spend anything from $69 for one year of education to an amount of your choice.

3. iPad Mini

My very good friend didn’t bat an eyelid when I dropped her iPad onto a concrete floor. Gosh I felt like crap but I had no idea the ‘cover’ was just magnetic. Plus I was carrying so many things already. I was bound to drop something and it’s always going to be the most valuable item, right?

Enter the iPad Mini. Bigger than an iPhone and smaller than an iPad, it’s pretty bloody perfect for those of us who don’t have the patience to carry just one thing at a time and who are sick to death of their kids having custody of their iPhones, causing me to miss messages and witty Facebook exchanges.

So, here you go kids. At just $369 from the apple store it sounds pretty good to me.

4. Bunning kitchen accessories

My brother just moved out of home with his girlfriend and they spend every weekend entertaining. It’s so cute and domestic. He cooks, they have a proper tray for coffee and he sets up elaborate food displays like cheese and fruit platters and expensive gelato from the shop across the road.

I am yet to receive my invitation and I think it might have something to do with my three Tassie Devils (children) who would whirl all around, destroying the joint. I jokingly said I’d just turn up one day and the words ‘floor boards’ and ‘buff’ were mentioned. I think we’ll just meet up in a local park.

I’m thinking of some Bunnings kitchen accessories for him, to suit his very pretty house where everything is new, shiny and lovely.

5. Irwin Builders Toolbag

My husband and I have a $50 limit for buying Christmas gifts for each other. Usually I just buy him a huge, sugary gift pack like those Wizz Fizz stockings at the supermarket but seeing as he is older and about twenty kilos overweight (sorry honey, but I worry), I have decided to get him something that he can’t eat and that will get him to help me out around the house more.

I am already giggling at visions of him carrying his new toolbag, wandering around the house trying to find things to ‘fix’. I have a list but to be honest, I’ll probably steer him towards areas of our home where he can do as little damage as possible (the paint peeling off the laundry cupboard door, the handle on the fridge door, the letterbox which is rusted and in need of replacing) and hire professionals to fix the things that matter (the front railing, the netting on our trampoline, the wardrobe doors that keep falling off) while he is at work.

This toolbag is just $49.94 at Bunnings. Brilliant.

6. Coffee

I am a coffee snob (but not as bad as some people I know). There are three places in my entire suburb where I’ll drink the coffee. At home it’s either Moccona Indulgence or Illy (I am a recent convert to Illy. It is expensively delicious and I hide it from the rest of my family and use it for myself).

I always have good coffee in the house. I’m Italian, all the non-Italian’s I know expect the best coffee when they come to my house and my lawn mower man is a friend of the family and on a hot day he’ll still drink a cup of espresso, just like my dad used to.

A coffee pack is always a good gift, especially as a gift for teachers at your children’s school, work colleagues or any of your friends and family but it’s always better when you make it up yourself. You can buy really affordable baskets at Bunnings. Put in a tin of Illy, a coffee grinder, a little coffee percolator or plunger and some quality biscuits or chocolate and wrap her up in cellophane. Done!

7. Paddling Pool

I’m not sure what the weather is doing this Summer. One week it’s stiflingly hot and sticky and the next I’m back in jeans and boots! But still, there’s always going to be a day hot enough to have a play in a sprinkler or a paddling pool.

My little nephew isn’t quite one yet and my sister requested a paddling pool big enough for him and his dad to sit in for a splash. She’s asked for a blow up paddling pool so it is portable.

If you’re buying a gift for people with a pool then go nuts with the pool toys. There are some amazing ones available at the moment including floating volley ball and basketball.

8. Local Art

We all love art, some of us just don’t know it. It would never occur to me to buy art for myself but one year, just before Christmas, a student from a local art school came to my door with a portfolio of the most amazing paintings I’ve ever seen. Everything from landscape to modern art.

She offered them for sale for around $200 and then gave me the details of a portable framing company who would visit me and frame my painting for me. My black and white painting of Venice still hangs on my bedroom wall and I’m thinking of gifting it to my mum who has travelled Europe extensively and misses it a lot.

A brilliant gift idea is to source some local art. If you are lucky enough to live in a suburb with weekend markets the half the work is done for you. Otherwise you can contact your local art school and go for a visit or there are some great websites.

9. Sporting merchandise

This is the perfect time of the year to buy new sporting merchandise for the New Year and the people in my life who are mad sports fans are the easiest to buy for. A lot of NRL clubs are selling last season merchandise and have new products for next year. The cricket is on, AFL, basketball.

We are mad Parramatta Eels fans in my family and I know my nephew wants the latest lunch box before the school year next year. My brother-in-law is always happy with a merchandise voucher and I bought him the cutest Eels lunch pail one year. He’s a builder so he thought it was pretty awesome.

My son wants to play soccer because all his friends play soccer but whenever I sign him up he hates it. He drags himself around the field, tells me training is boring and basically tortures me and acts like it’s all my fault for listening to him when he said he wanted to play.

Enter the Socceroos jersey. I figure if I deck him out like a champion he’ll feel like a bit of a champion and add a highlights DVD to the gift and most boys, young and old will be pretty happy with you.

10. Wine or champagne

Wine or champagne is a brilliant gift for someone this Christmas and when you think about it, an amazing bottle of really good wine or champagne will probably be more affordable than most of the gifts you are buying this year.

I know my former boss is a chardonnay drinker so I paid a visit to my local bottle shop recently and I asked the attendant for “a bottle of chardonnay that is expensive, popular but not too trendy and that would be respected by a chardonnay drinker”. He paused for a moment before leading me to a beautiful Australian brand.

I slipped it into a Christmas gift bag.

Before my mum and dad both started taking blood pressure medication their Christmas gift was always Tia Maria for my mum and Johnnie Walker Red Label for my dad. My brother bought my dad a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black Label recently and my mum frantically pulled him aside and advised him to buy a much cheaper bottle next time because my dad gargles with it and then spits it out. Apparently he just wants to get a taste but can’t swallow because of his medication!

11. High pressure cleaner

Every home needs a high pressure cleaner. The only problem is that you’ll eventually run out of surfaces to clean because they are so fast and efficient.

My brother-in-law brought one over to our house and had so much fun cleaning our front steps that he blasted them a little too much and removed some of the concrete from them.

They’ll love their high pressure cleaner so much that you’ll have no trouble getting your home cleaned, the homes of family and friends, the homes of neighbours and it’s a great way to get him to volunteer at your children’s school working bee.

Bunnings has a great range of them from $84 to $999.

12. Bunnings eGift Card

When all else fails, and it’s too late to find something at the shops, a Bunnings eGift card is my family’s go-to gift for my dad – or really any member of the family – because they sell EVERYTHING.

Not to mention, it’s a convenient way of shopping because the eGift card can be purchased at any hour of the day, even 11:50pm on Christmas Eve (handy for those of us who are more, um, forgetful). All you do is head online, select the gift amount, and boom – the eGift card lands in their email inbox. Too easy.

A gift card is also good when buying a gifts as a group – my siblings and I usually all chip in and then it’s my job to buy it online.

What NOT to buy as a gift:

– Perfume or aftershave – sometimes the most beautiful scent smells disgusting on certain people;

– Clothing – too big, too small, to red, enough said;

– Junk food – just don’t;

– Animals – once in a two year period I was given a budgie, a dog and a kitten, all rejected pets;

– Scratch-its or Lotto tickets – once the frenzy of scratching is over it’s a bit of a let-down and if someone wins big, the legal issues over who owns the money or the resulting resentment just isn’t worth it;

– Jewellery – unless you know the person intimately don’t bother with jewellery. I can’t remember my sisters liking even one piece of jewellery they’ve been given in my life;

– Something you’ve really bought for yourself – lame and could the person in my life who does this please stop;

– Infomercial products – I don’t want a machine that chops vegetable in twenty-seven different ways and it’s actually difficult to clean, even when carefully following the instructions.

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Do you shop for your Christmas gifts at the last minute?