If you’re looking for impulse-priced stocking stuffers, head over here, because this list isn’t that. These are our favorite premium gifts for the premium people in your life, the products that we know are worth it for your friends and family who are really, really worth it.
Buy Them Better Dinner, Forever
Don’t make them work for it with a meal subscription service, get them the appliances that do it perfectly every time while they binge watch TV.
The Instant Pot is a pressure cooker, slow cooker, rice cooker, and multiple other appliances in one.
When you buy them a Sous Vide machine you can let them know you’re gifting them the best meals they’ll ever make.
Breville’s Smart Oven Air, which is also a dehydrator and air fryer, will make them wish they could get rid of their range to save space.
Buy Them Better Sleep
Don’t get them a quilt they don’t want or a highly flammable throw blanket, get them a Leesa mattress, or go less extreme and treat them to some Leesa pillows, both made of supportive, cool foam.
[Get $125 off a Leesa mattress plus the pillow for free with code HOLIDAY2017]
If they’re already set for a bed, cover for them in better sheets. Go with Primary for linen, Boll & Branch for flannel, and Rumpl to replace their duvet.
What brings people more joy than music? Not a whole lot, especially these days. Premium audio equipment will make the music they love feel new again and enhance all the media they consume.
Blow them away with a custom turntable from U-Turn that you designed just for them, and check out our reader’s picks if you need some inspiration for their first few records. Pair it with Audiongine’s HD3s.
This should be fairly obvious at this point, but fill their living room and whole home with Sonos products for great, easy sound, whether you’re putting together a surround system using a Playbar, two Sonos Ones (now with Alexa), and Sub, or just putting a Sonos One in all their rooms.
For solo wireless listening, we haven’t found better or more beautiful than Master & Dynamic’s MW60s.
Buy Them Better Coffee
Did you get someone you love a Keurig, you monster? Make it up to them with the new best coffeemaker, the Breville Precision Brewer Thermal, which not only meets Specialty Coffee Association standards, but even does pour over and cold brew, and a grinder to match.
If they prefer espresso-based drinks, serve them the idiot-proof Breville Creatista, which works with recyclable Nespresso pods.
And for the person you truly love that truly loves coffee, nothing beats the Breville Oracle Touch, complete with touchscreen, built-in tutorial, and amazing lattes.
Don’t leave them hanging with no beans and no mugs. Crema.co offers amazing coffee with a highly-customizable subscription, and for drinking vessels, go Fellow for glass, Brooklyn Slate for... slate, and Ember for mugs that maintain drink temperature in both directions (seriously).
Buy Them Better Tea
Maybe you’ve gifted people tea bags in the past, but there’s always time to be better. The Breville One-Touch tea steeper is a perfect appliance. Pair with tea from Harney and Sons or Bellocq and any of the mugs we recommended in the coffee section above.
Buy Them Better Travel
Gifting trips is tricky. Gifting gift card for airlines, hotel chains, and the like is boring. We have some better ideas.
Surviving air travel starts with the right equipment, and nothing is more important than the carry-on. Get them a Bluesmart if they’re tied to their laptop, or an Away bag if not.
Once you’ve saved all their worldly possessions from being checked lost, help them drown out everything happening at 30,000 feet with some noise-canceling over-ear headphones.
We have one more idea for you, for their travel, and while it might seem strange at first, they’re going to get more use and return from it than any other gift anyone ever gives them: a premium travel rewards credit card.
While you can’t “gift” someone a credit card, you can pay their first annual fee, and as a result get them on the rewards train, get them the return on their sign-up bonus, and get them redeeming their points for amazing trips.