From the sidelines
By Marty Gordon
Photo from UncommonGoods.com
Baseball fans will be thrilled with this special gift: their favorite baseball team and its stadium locked down on their drinking glasses.
Photo courtesy of ButcherBox
Steak, burgers and bacon can now all arrive at your doorstep with a subscription to Butcherbox.com, a perfect gift for anyone, any age.
Coasters made like 12-gauge shotgun shells are a great gift idea for the outdoorsmen in your life.
Photo courtesy of itsthoughtful.com
Hiking the Appalachian Trail can be remembered in this year’s gift of a special business card holder.
Photo courtesy of OrangeBirds
This vinyl decal from OrangeBirds makes a perfect Christmas gift for that special outdoorsman.
Black Friday was just not the same this year. Because of the COVIDo-19 pandemic, shopping over the long Thanksgiving weekend was just not as hectic as in the past.
Instead, more and more people are turning online for their shopping. But keeping with a Thanksgiving tradition, I offer up for your consideration the hot items and gadgets that are available for the sportsman in your life. Take a look at these items that are at the top of a lot of shopping lists this season.
The Internet offers so many possibilities for the fan and the outdoorsman that it is downright bewildering. One bonus for these cool gifts is that they can be used by men and/or women. Gender doesn’t matter.
- The Virginia Tech online sports store through Fanatics has some interesting finds including a barrel top desk for $115. It is something unique at 27-inches high made from wood and perfect for the man cave.
- Uncommon Goods lets you cherish days gone by with a grown-up version of one of childhood’s greatest gadgets: a view finder. It’s a unique, inexpensive gift for only $29 that lets the family assemble snapshots of their favorite memories and add them to your very own reel using the redemption code included with your viewer. Once you receive your made-to-order reel, pop it in the viewer and marvel at baby’s first steps or a favorite beach at sunset, or… well, whatever else you want immortalized.
- Uncommon Goods is one of the hottest places to find the most interesting gadgets and items such as baseball park map glasses. A set of two is a great way to surprise that baseball fan in your life. Each set of two whiskey glasses features a map of an iconic Major League Baseball stadium in the team’s two main colors. The price is a steal at $35.
- A subscription to ButcherBox, the trendy meat delivery service, offers a vast selection of high-quality meat and seafood (It’s all grass-fed and organic.) that the recipient can pick and choose from each month. A gift certificate starts at $25.
- Cabela’s Outdoors has something that shoppers might overlook if they’re not looking closely in the store or on their website, but it is an important item for anyone who spends time outdoors or on the grill. That’s because there are scores of ways to prepare delicious meats, fish and fowl with a smoker. Now, Cabela’s has a handy, flip-card-style recipe booklet that contains over 50 recipes for using all the flavor bisquettes from hot smoked salmon or pork loin roast to maple smoked acorn squash. The Bradley flip cookbook can fit in the palm of your hand and is perfect for the grillmaster at $16.
- Cabela’s is also the place to find the Stanley classic vacuum camp mug. For $25, it’s a steal. Whether campers are enjoying a quiet morning at camp or facing a full day of work, the Stanley classic vacuum camp mug will make the whole trip a lot of fun. The 16-oz. Mug has a flip lid and a sturdy base.
- A useful gift that’s always appreciated by the outdoorsman is a personalized knife with that special person’s name on it. From www.personalizationmall.com , the sleek-black finish knife is a reasonable $36.99. It comes engraved with up to two lines of text and measures eight inches when fully opened and is handy for the car, truck or toolbox.
- For a gift way out of the ordinary and a touch of the humorous, try a talking toilet paper roll that’s on Amazon for $17.99. This will make the best off-the-wall gift under the tree. The gifter can record a personal message or come up with a hilarious joke. It fits most toilet paper holders and is a great stocking stuffer.
- A shotgun shell coaster set is another unique gift and is reasonably priced at $24 on Amazon. These come in a set of four, are made of cold-cast resin three ½ inches in diameter with padded non-skid feet. The 12-gauge top makes a great gift for hunting enthusiasts.
- How about some personalized golf balls with the pictures of the grandkids on them? At
www.personalizationmall.com , this set of 12 golf balls can be found for $26.99.
- An Appalachian Trail business card holder stands out at a price of $38 from itsthoughtful.com. This card case features a map of the United States etched with a wood-on-wood representation of the Appalachian Trail and holds up to 15 business cards.
- Have you ever thought about owning an acre of land on the moon? Well, now you can thanks to lunarland.com/moon-land. For as little as $29.99, that special someone can become the new property owner of lunar land. It comes with special documents including a map of your property. The “For Sale” sign ranges all the way up to $249 where you will receive a framed copy of your deed and map along with a meteorite rock. They also sell land on Mars.
- And speaking of space, how about a Fisher Space AG7 Original Astronaut Space Pen, available at the Fisher Space Pen Store for $54. The chrome pen writes at any angle, even in Zero Gravity.
- Visit the Survive Outdoors Longer Store for the perfect tool kit for $39.99 with free shipping. It includes 11 different survival tools, a sewing needle and a survival instruction guide with an ultra-bright LED light that offers 15 hours of run time and easily replaceable batteries for extended use.
- Another link to the Appalachian Trail can be found in A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, a book by Bill Bryson. Kindle has the novel at $8.99.
- The theme for hikers also continues with a hiking log book journal by the Happy Eden Company. For $6.99 on Amazon, this Hiking Logbook Journal is just the “write” thing for mountain climbing and hiking enthusiasts. It is printed on high quality interior stock and professionally bound with a premium matte cover. Each spread contains prompts and information to help hikers document their journeys, a section for notes and plenty of room to write including a place to record the date, weather, location, elevation gain/loss, time, distance, latitude/longitude, conditions, difficulty level, route taken, trail features and a place document information about fees, parking, shuttles, etc.
- Those outdoorsmen will also love the “Go Outside Worst Case Scenario A Bear Kills You” vinyl decal sticker for $4.39 from Orangebirds.
- Or how about a Bigfoot air freshener for $5 at Amazon? It smells just like a Sasquatch. The tall air freshener comes with a string for hanging.
- The DALARAN store has garden gloves with fingertip claws for easy digging and planting. For $5.29, they are a steal and can be used for back scratching.
- For bicycle enthusiasts, Amazon has a universal bike phone mount compatible with any cellphone with a screen size between 4 to 6.5 inches with or without a phone case for $8.63. It will not obscure the camera lens or buttons, allowing the biker to easily take photos or videos while riding.
- The Lowball Rambler Handle for 10-ounce Yeti cups is perfect for all sportsmen. It can be found online at the Yeti store for $9.98.
- Finally, USToy has three fishing lure tackle keychains that will remind an angler of the joy of being on a riverbank or out on the boat. They look just like real fishing tackle and measure two inches. Amazon has them for $9.99.
Again, happy holidays and enjoy shopping for that special outdoorsman. See ya on the riverbank.
