A thoughtful gift – wait, a thoughtful and health-promoting gift is a great way to show someone you care this season! And whether it’s simply a bar of your favorite chocolate, or something jaw-dropping that someone might not ever buy for themselves (like a meat-slicer), we’ll help steer you in the right direction with some real food, clean living, fun and practical gifts!
And because we too are in the holiday spirit of giving, be sure to check the bottom of this post for a GIVEAWAY of the item of YOUR CHOICE!
GIVEAWAY IS CLOSED – TAMMY ALLEN IS OUR WINNER
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GIFTS FOR THE KITCHEN
1 – Lodge Cast Iron Pan: The work horse of the kitchen! Everyone should have at least one of these fine, all-American, classic pans in their kitchen repertoire. Some know cast iron cookware as the flavor sealer, and if you use your Lodge pan to make Restaurant Steaks from Real Life Paleo, you will see what we mean! And if you properly season your cast iron, you will be living in fried egg perfection land!
2 – Le Creuset Dutch Oven: As cherished as your great great great grandmother’s jewelry, Le Cruset pots and pans last a lifetime, and only increase in value with age! Available in so many colors and sizes, these are great for both the novice cook and the serious chef who are looking to jazz up their cooking process.
3 – Mini Deep Fryer: Know a healthy eater who misses the not-so-healthy foods of yesteryear? Give them a quality fryer to help them fill that void while using healthy cooking fats! We love using ours to make chicken fingers, fried yucca, plantains and so much more! You can find a number of healthy fried recipe ideas in both Beyond Bacon and Real Life Paleo!
4 – Food Dehydrator: We’ve owned one of these for YEARS, and can’t tell you how much money it has saved us, being able to make our own jerky, fruit leathers and fruit chips! Perfect for both parents with young kids and mega meat lovers, a food dehydrator is a kitchen tool that we think no real foods family should be without!
5 – Meat Slicer: This is a fun gift for anyone who loves to make their own food! We actually use ours all the time – not only for meats, but it makes quick work of slicing veggies too! Our trick to the perfect veggie-based lasagnas in Real Life Paleo and the Fried Sweet Potato Chips in Beyond Bacon and the Deli Roast Beef in Paleo to Go was using this exact tool! It is SO much safer, Matt hasn’t lost any parts of his hand using this (unlike many incidents previously with a mandolin).
6 – One of our books!: Ok, this may be a little bias, but we have also heard from many others (just a few examples here and here) that our third book baby is THE MUST HAVE BOOK this holiday season! With 100 pages dedicated to ‘how-to’ phase into healthier habits, visual recipe indexes for quick & easy, special occasions, and allergen-friendly dishes, meal ideas to help you put balanced meals on your table, menu plans for successful holidays and special occasions, AND 175 deliciously amazing recipes, including fan-favorites as well as LOTS of brand new recipes – it is just really kind of majorly, but truly, the perfect gift for the seasoned real food foodie or that one person in your life that is SOCLOSE to “going paleo” but clinging to that one last excuse. And if you haven’t already gifted Eat Like a Dinosaur to every kid you know… well, why not?! And Beyond Bacon is notoriously perfect for the bacon lover or hard to please person in your life, with unique and gorgeous recipes it’s commonly well received as a gift. Plus, you know, we’ve got two eBooks for the kindle lovers in your life. Just saying. 😉
7 – Paleo Parents Meat Box: Give the gift of meat this holiday season! Not just any meat, but our favorite cuts from a humanely and sustainably farm you can feel good about supporting! If you didn’t hear, we got to curate a meat box that features our favorite cuts of meat, along with the recipes that we recommend for those cuts! Almost like a meal service in a box, this would make a great gift for a family, or someone notoriously hard to buy for! Practical and delicious!
8 – Chosen Foods Paleo Gift Pack: This pack includes a SIGNED copy of Real Life Paleo AND one of our all-time favorite oils: avocado! This pack comes with both a 500 ML bottle of oil and our absolute favorite brand-new clean-ingredient SPRAY bottle of oil. A perfect gift for anyone starting their health journey and looking for new healthy fats to cook with! Hurry – only a limited number are available and it’s currently listed at just the cover price of the book alone!
GIFTS HOMEMADE WITH LOVE
9 – Our Homemade Marshmallows: We love homemade gifts to both give and receive! And what could be more holiday-festive and full of love than a cute baggie, tied with a pretty bow and filled with our pillowy, sweet marshmallows? Our favorite marshmallows are from Real Life Paleo but we also have these peppermint, molasses ginger, and s’mores versions on the blog!
10 – Homemade Apple Butter or Apple Butter BBQ Sauce: We turn our hand-picked apples into many different things each fall – and these butters are a family favorite! Add a cute label (like these) tied on the jar with baker’s string, and you’ve got an instant gift. Our Apple Butter BBQ Sauce from Real Life Paleo might be the perfect gift for that hard-to-buy-for guy you know. We love it on chicken or ribs! Pair it with a new grill brush, or this bbq basting brush for a thoughtful gift.
GIFTS FOR HER
11 – Paleo Parents Spreadshirt Tanks, Sweaters and T-Shirts: Tanks, t-shirts, sweatshirts – whatever you like, we’ve got it in the Paleo Parents shop at Spreadshirt! From kids’ shirts, workout gear for the strong woman in your life, or even the most hard core lard lover – you can customize any of our designs with a favorite cut and color!
12 – Hand Crafted Jewelry from Joy Dravecky or OhKuol: Stacy’s (for lack of a better word) obsessions – Joy Draveky’s and OhKuol jewelry is a gift full of personality that any woman would love (and much more affordable than fine gem stones)! And for a limited time, go through this link to get $5 off your first Etsy purchase!
STOCKING STUFFERS
13 – Good Kitchen Tongs: Quality kitchen equipment can make all the difference in the world when cooking real food meals. A nice pair of tongs is actually an inexpensive and thoughtful gift. You can never have too many pairs of tongs!
14 – GIR Bacon Spatula: We know you love bacon. We do too. And we adore this bacon spatula from GIR. No matter what color spatula you choose (they have a ton of awesome, bright colors!) you will love the design, and durability. Plus, this spatula is all one piece, with no hard to clean area where the head meets the handle (like other spatulas can have).
15 – Alter Eco Blackout Chocolate: Don’t fall into the trap of all that holiday candy surrounding you in the store, quality over quantity is the key here! We (Stacy especially!) loves high-quality fair-trade soy-free dark chocolate. And this chocolate is goo-o0-ood! So deep and dark and perfect for any chocolate-lover you know!
16 – Eating Evolved Chocolate: Their coconut mint and caramel cups are some of our favorite! And the boys just can’t get enough of their hot chocolate (they even have a Spicy Aztec variety for the more adventurous!). Handmade with love and dairy-free, this stuff is awesome!
17 – Tarte Amazonian Clay Mascara: There are a couple beauty products that Stacy just can’t live without- this is one of them! It’s the only gluten-free mascara she’s found that actually works – many of the Paleo ladies use it! It makes a great little stocking stuffer or thoughtful gift for anyone trying to avoid more toxic ingredients in 2015. Stacy gave this gift to a few people last year and they ended up loving it so much they switched when it ran out.
18 – Primal Life Organics Salty Texture Spray: Another Stacy-must-have! Create volume and texture in your hair without dousing your head in nasty chemicals with this delightful smelling spray! P.S. busy mommas – this stuff is how Stacy kept that hair looking fresh during the recent book signing tour! 😉
GIFTS FOR THE LITTLES
19 – Hannah Anderson Organic Cotton Jammies: These are the only clothes that have held up for all three of our boys, and they don’t at all look like hand me downs despite the many years they have been worn! The boys love how comfy they are, and we love the earth-friendly, high quality fabrics they are made from. Every year we let the boys open a gift on Christmas Eve and it’s always a package with a pair of these jammies and a new book we read before bed.
20 – Fred Kids Face Plates: Originally purchased for food photography, we had to get 3 of these plates because our boys love them – and we think your kids will too! Fill them with real food and watch them scarf down all those veggies! Nothing like a good ol’ round of playing-with-your-food to make things fun instead of a battle at the table.
GIFTS FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY
21 – Gift Certificate of Togetherness: How about a certificate for the whole family to do a fun activity together? We love giving “not-stuff” presents like these, and the boys love them too. Plus, family activities are where some of our favorite memories are made! Consider a night at the movies, paintball, bowling, ice skating, mini-golf, you-pick farm visits, museum passes – whatever your family enjoys!
22 – Game Night Basket: We are really into family game nights and can’t recommend them enough! It is the perfect excuse to detox from the electronics and connect with your loved ones. We always end up laughing and having a great time together. Munchkin is our favorite, but there are so many amazing ones to chose from!
23 – Oxfam Donation: Consider making a donation to a great cause! Oxfam International is working to prevent poverty around the world, and you can support their mission my making a gift in honor of your gift recipient. The year we wrote Beyond Bacon Matt’s family gave us the gift of donating a pig to a family in need, it was perfect since we didn’t need any more stuff!
24 – Epic Paleo Holiday Survival Kit: Stacy received this basket as a gift from Epic and loved it so much she gifted it to the Paleo Parents Team members! It’s so much fun! You know those fake cheese, cracker and preservative-filled meat baskets everyone gives for Christmas? Well this is nothing like those! This is literally a million times better- a basket loaded with some of the most awesome brands in Paleo and the proceeds benefit the Savory Institute since all the brands generously donated their items for the basket!
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GIVEAWAY
And as a very special holiday treat, we will be awarding one lucky reader with an item of their choosing from our list above! You must comment with the item you want from this list, and you can earn extra entries by following us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, tweeting this post, and subscribing to our newsletter.
Remember Matt’s rules of giveaways!
- Please use a valid email address when entering. I cannot use my dowsing rods to attempt to find which bytes form your contact address!
- Please follow all the rules so I don’t get frustrated by invalid entries. Nothing makes more of a sad panda than picking a winner who I have to disqualify.
- Please respond within 48 hours or I will have to pick a new winner! I have a certain set of skills that make me a nightmare to people who don’t respond: the ability to randomly draw again.
- Please be a US resident. My mana is too low to cast a Teleportation Spell!
Happy Holidays!
