<p>I'm having a hard time thinking of good stocking stuffers for my three teens and husband this year. I admit that in the past I've spent quite a bit of money on things like gift cards and photo memory cards, but I'm more money conscious this year.</p>
<p>What's the most fun, funny, clever or cool stocking stuffer you've bought this year?</p>
<p>Well, this is pretty specific to my family, but I got my daughter a tiny bottle of olive oil to take back to college. Our household follows the Spanish tradition of drizzling olive oil and salt on bread and toast, instead of butter or some other topping. My daughter says she misses being able to to this at school - unsurprisingly, the dorm cafeteria doesn't have little containers of olive oil all over the place. So now she'll have her own. Also got her a very small, flower-shaped magnetic dry-erase board so she can exchange messages with her roommate. The Container Store has one like it but the one I got was much smaller and cheaper.</p>
<p>I got a USB flash drive that looks like a skateboard for my son - there are lots of fun, inexpensive flash drives out there. I also got him an artsy t-shirt from Poketo.com (LA) that I can roll up to fit in a stocking - not cheap, but he really needs some non-logo shirts. He is also getting a CD of a stand-up comic, which qualifies as funny in some sense.</p>
<p>What does one do with a flash drive? I've seen lawyers pull them out to be able to work on documents remotely, but I'm so low tech, I can't figure out why a kid would need one.</p>
<p>Say you are working on a document and then you are working with a group. You want to make changes to it on someone else's computer...I use mine to take files to my accountant, to take files to the print shop to get a better quality print job than at my office or to print a larger job.<br>
Kids use them to transfer music...I put a bunch of mp3s on mine then dump those on to my friends computer.
For me and my kids anyway it's a portability issue.</p>
<p>So no one downloads info onto a disc or cd anymore, it's all flash drive?</p>
<p>At my kids' public high school, they put flash drives on the list of "toolkit" items every student should have in their backpacks, along with pencils and pens. That way if kids are working on something on a school computer, they can easily transport it to home. Or if they don't have a printer at home, they can print an assignment at school. It is also helpful for group work, as ebeeeee says.</p>
<p>A flash drive is SO much easier and more compact than CDs. Disks...do computers still take those? :) Everyone here has flash drives. I use mine for work related documents. We have been advised that confidential reports cannot be sent via email. I used to work on reports here at home and then email them to myself at work. Now I just load them on my flash drive instead and poof use them on my work computer. DD will use hers when she is working and needs portability of the document. DS does the same.</p>
<p>Yes, burning CDs is very cumbersome compared to flash drives. Lots of people keep them on their keyrings now. </p>
<p>As far as stocking stuffers go, I've used silly putty, some fiddly hand things:</p>
<p>FiddlLINK®</a> | HandHealth</p>
<p>a WD-40 pen for my husband (suggested on a thread here). And I usually find something funny at CVS - little wind-up Santas, for example.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>What's the most fun, cool or clever stocking stuffer you've bought? >></p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Well...ours was NOT inexpensive. BUT the best stocking stuffer we ever did...and it was a surprise that we managed to keep a secret for a year...we put airline tickets to Disneyworld for a Dec 26 departure in everyone's stockings. This was back in the day when they both still believed in Santa. Very tiny those tickets were! We open our stockings first. They were a big hit. The other gifts from Santa were new bathing suits, sunscreen, beach towels, disney autograph books, etc. My kids still talk about that Christmas morning and both say they will do the same with their own kids someday (when they have kids). They were 1st grade and 4th grade at the time.</p>
<p>If I buy a flash dirve, is it obvious where to connect it? I mean, there are trays for CDs. I assume you plug the flash drive into something obvious at the front of the computer? When you save, is there something that pops up to ask if you want to save it to the flashdrive? I get so confused when it asks me by letter (e.g C, K) what I want to save to. Why is nothing labeled?</p>
<p>chocolate coins (the ones with gold foil), mini booze bottle (Kahula) for the DW or DH, mini-travel size shampoo, deoderant, etc, scratch off lottery tickets, movie passes, small specialty coffees, whoopee cushion (DS loved it), etc. The dollar store has lots of cool stocking stuffers.</p>
<p>Here's a recent thread on this topic:</p>
<p>The Archie McPhee items are fun, not sure if you still have time to order them.</p>
<p>Oh, I wish I'd discovered Archie McFee a week ago! Daughter just turned in a term paper on Oscar Wilde today, and the highlight of the appendix was a picture of the Oscar Wilde action figure....that must be where she got the picture. I'll have to remember it for next year (because, of course, it would defeat the goal of having inexpensive stocking stuffers if I paid for express delivery!)</p>
<p>I'm a member of a fitness club and I'm getting my son a special card that entitles him to use the club for 5 different days (it's cheap...less that $20). I know he'll use it over the break...he's a very active at his school gym.<br>
Also get cheap DVDs from Walmart (5 bucks).</p>
<p>We always have (tradition from my childhood) an apple in the toe and an orange in the heel. And a big candy cane sticking out the top.</p>
<p>I think [url=<a href="http://www.totes-isotoner.com/category/rain+products/umbrellas/jingle+brella.do%5Dthis%5B/url">http://www.totes-isotoner.com/category/rain+products/umbrellas/jingle+brella.do]this[/url</a>] is a pretty cute stocking stuffer. They come in all kinds of designs. Really useful for college students.</p>
<p>
[quote]
So no one downloads info onto a disc or cd anymore, it's all flash drive?
[/quote]
Everyone I know uses a flash drive. Computers don't come standard with a floppy drive anymore. You have to pay extra for it. CDs are getting cheaper now, but why waste money on those, when you can just pay one time for a flash drive? Plus, burning a CD can take a while.</p>
<p>The mention of oranges in stockings always make me sad, as I remember the stories of my mom and other depresson era kids - how the orange was *what they got *for Christmas..a whole orange, just for one person.</p>
<p>My grandpa actually got coal in his stocking one year. That is what he got for Christmas, because his parents said he'd been naughty.</p>
<p>Little bottles of hand sanitizer can be good. Along the lines of travel/sample size items one year trying to be silly I picked up a small travel package of toilet seat liners and put them in my wife's stocking. After laughing like fools for several minutes they actually turned out to be really useful for her to have in her purse.</p>
<p>My grandparents always put one cheap lottery ticket in each stocking. One year my brother won $500, and I won $200 the next year. (Fingers crossed to do it again this year... Book money is needed!)</p>
<p>I always liked (and this sounds dumb) a single pair of really nice wool socks in my stocking.</p>
<p>I always go to an office supply store for cute post it notes, mechanical pencils - stuff that is not junk, but that the kids don't want to buy. I try for the fun version, but still practical.</p>
<p>And ditto to the flash drive. We have several that float around the house, because they are always needed.</p>