18 Gifts Worth Giving For 2018

By Stephie Hennekam

‘Tis the season of giving gifts, taking a break and spending time with loved ones. But before all that takes place, there’s the pre-holidays rush to get through…

At work this means prepping for the annual holiday break – busy times. At home this means trying to dress up your Christmas tree “Hallmark” style to create the ultimate Christmas atmosphere – busy times. Also skimming through cookbooks, family recipe notebooks, and food blogs to make this year’s menu another jaw-dropping event catering to everybody’s needs – (very) busy times.

Those weeks running up to the holidays can feel like an obstacle course where the 25th of December is the finish you only just manage to reach, exhausted.

And we can’t forget about the yearly quest for the perfect holiday gifts. As easy as it may be for certain people to find the perfect gift, after x Christmases your parents and loved ones aren’t really in need of another pair of pyjamas, another photo frame, another vase or meaningless gift voucher.

We want to ease your pain and give you some last-minute gift ideas. Below you can find 18 gifts worth giving for the upcoming Holidays.

These gifts check one or more of the following boxes: they’re meaningful, useful, support a good cause, have a good price/quality ratio, are environmentally friendly, are cruelty and/or toxin free. Check out the list and let us know your thoughts.

Don’t we all already have everything we need? Ever thought of choosing a non-profit organization your gift-person feels passionate about and (1) donate whatever you were planning to spend on a gift to the organization instead. Don’t forget to tell your “giftee” about it!

(2) Donate your time. This is one of my personal favorites that ticks off almost all “perfect gift” boxes: engaging, inspiring, meaningful, leading by example, broadening – perspective, for a good cause, spending quality time with someone you love.

No idea where to start? Check out some local non-profit organizations and see what kind of help they can use e.g. local animal sanctuaries like The Happy Herd Farm, animal shelters like WAG, elderly homes, soup kitchens, re-use-it centres, reject shops, …

A monthly membership for a magazine (3) that inspires, engages, innovates, teaches, etc. e.g. National Geographic style magazines, or a magazine about science, psychology, mindfulness, engineering, yoga, etc.? Simply put, whatever the person you have in mind is interested in.

Books! There are so many meaningful books around which will be appreciated when given a chance. Some of the favorites of the Richer Health team are: (4) How Not to Die, (5) The Other Side of Impossible – check out Nicolette’s latest interview with the author of this book.

(6) The Emperor of All Maladies, (7) Bad Science, (8) You’re going to survive, (9) You’re a Badass, and basically all  the Oh She Glows cookbooks (10).

If you’re looking for more meaningful books, you can find more titles we recommend on the resources page of the Richer Health website.

Another gift to spice up one’s health is a juicer. Considering these are pretty pricey when you’re going for quality, why not contributing with a bunch of people? Even if the total does not add up to the full juicer price in the end, you can give a voucher towards the juicer.

It’s important to pick a good juicer – more about how to choose a juicer can be found on The Green Moustache Blog.

Here are the ones we feel are worth your pennies: (11) the Omega Juicer and (12) the Champion Juicer: very good price/quality and both will help you nutrify to get your health back on track. If you can, and want to spend more money, there are two pricy ones that are top notch: (13), the Angel Juicer and (14) Norwalk Juicer.

For people who do like fashionable gifts there is some amazingly trendy and stylish (15) vegan apparel out there. Check out brands like Vegan Police Shop ( from the Sunshine Coast), or Vegetaryn (LA based blogger), or Native Shoes, a Vancouver based vegan shoe company.

Unique and eco-friendly cotton (16) totes can be found on the Unique Company’s website. Buying a tote means donating 10% of the price to the Save Elephant Foundation. Win-win!

Beauty products are loved and practical gifts when chosen correct. However, being mindful of what you’re giving and truly wanting those beauty presents to be healthy, means ruling out the most popular brands due to their extensively toxic ingredient list.
Luckily there are some BC based companies who are working on changing the beauty-product scene. (17) Saje and (18) Natural Vegan products both offer products worth giving.

Let’s quickly review all these amazing gift-ideas so you can finally cross off “getting gifts” of your to-do list

• Donate money or time
• Monthly magazine membership
• Books
• Juicer
• Mindful and cruelty free apparel, shoes and totes
• Natural, cruelty and toxin-free beauty products

And, after running around making sure everybody is taken care of, don’t forget to take care of yourself! After all, these are holidays for you as well!

I wish you the happiest of Holidays & a good health for you and your loved ones in 2018!

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