During this stressful shopping season, you’ll inevitably need to find a present for someone you wouldn’t normally gift. Perhaps you pulled a distant cousin’s name in the family exchange. Maybe you need to butter up the boss or fork over a gift for the neighborhood party swap. The following options, which are around $30, were seemingly tailor-made for those whose relationship to you hovers around “acquaintance.”
Designer Emulation Kit
$26 at the MCA Store, 220 E. Chicago Ave.
Design snobs will appreciate these miniature replicas of famous lamp styles that you can snap together from a single circuit board. Check mmckenna.com for other locations.
L’Occitane Marseille soap set
$30 at L’Occitane stores and loccitane.com
L’Occitane’s French-milled soaps come in sets that can be separated and redistributed, double or tripling their gift-giving value.
Build-a-Birdfeeder Kit
$30 at Smith & Hawken stores
and smithandhawken.com
For aspiring architects, naturalists or kids who need something to do, Smith & Hawken provides a project — an all-wood bird feeder kit complete with paint and brushes.
Lacquer nesting boxes
$19.99 on sale at West Elm stores
West Elm’s lacquer nesting boxes also can be split as more than one gift. Sure, it might seem a bit cheap, so call it “spreading the joy.”
