Phone Home For The Holidays

We’ll get to this E.T. Plushie in a minute, but first, we want to talk about gifting in general.

If you ask us, the best way to categorize gifts is not by what they are, but rather by the response they’re intended to elicit. For example, you have:

“Wow! Yes! Thank you!” gifts - These are your big ticket items. A new gaming console, that watch they’ve had their eye on, a shiny new KitchenAid mixer, or what have you.

“Oh, interesting! Thank you!” gifts - Here we have the smaller gifts that are sometimes more exciting because they show a sense of curation. A board game that the recipient has never heard of but will love, or a book that’s right up their alley.

“Ha! What?! Amazing! Thank you!” gifts - These are your sillier gifts. They’re not joke items… but they’re also not not joke items. They often require almost no engagement; instead, they earn a smile or a chuckle each time they’re viewed. A strange piece of art, maybe. Or a ridiculous plushie, perhaps.

Now, we’d argue that the first category is, counterintuitively, the easiest to shop for. Yes, we’re talking about the biggest, most important gifts, but because of that, the recipient has probably hinted at, if not explicitly told you, exactly what they want. The second category requires a bit more thought, but at least these gifts can be easily procured and often don’t cost too much.

The third, category, though, can be difficult. You don’t want to give someone a junky gag gift that they’re going to laugh at once and then throw away. But the kind of thing they’ll proudly display and enjoy for years? That stuff gets really friggin’ expensive. So expensive, in fact, that it undercuts the enjoyment of giving it (and also of receiving it if the recipient ever finds out what you paid).

Unless, of course, you shop with us. Here, you can get an 11-inch-tall, goofy-as-hell E.T. plushie that says iconic movie phrases, plus a basket, plus a blanket, and you don’t have to pay $80 for it all. Instead, you get it for about $20, thus maximizing the “Ha!” factor while keeping the cost low.

So get one for someone who loves E.T. this holiday season. Or shit, get one for someone who just sorta like E.T. It’s only twenty bucks!