It is that time of year when the tinsel is glistening, carols can be heard everywhere and the Christmas cheer is a welcome sight. While our working life has been rather different this year and the tradition of the office Kris Kringle may take a slightly different approach, it’s always fun to give a little gift that brings a smile to a friend’s face.
We have rounded up six of our favourites from the three Booko family websites. Oh yes, you read that right, THREE. Dan has had the busiest of lockdowns where he not only baked sourdough and pieced together thousands of puzzle pieces, he has also made shopping that little more clever for everyone. We now have Bricko and Popz.deals. They both work in the same vein as Booko; scouring the world for the best prices on LEGO and Pop Vinyls, showing shipping prices and converting it all into your local currency. You can even make lists and set price alerts on each site. Pretty clever really.
Here are our picks to make your Kris Kringle smile this year.
From Booko
Pizza: History, recipes, stories, people, places, love by Thom Elliot and James Elliot
Everyone loves pizza, right? Saver of parties, empty fridges and hangovers the world over – pizza has come to the rescue of the human race more times than is worth counting. So, if your Kris Kringle can’t imagine your world without dough, cheese and tomato, then this is the book for them. All things pizza are here, from its history and family tree, to world famous pizzerias and even an exploration into the pizza variants we love to hate (hamburger crust pizza anyone?). The Pizza Pilgrims, Thom and James Elliot, have spent years researching the best pizza that the world has to offer, and producing their own pizzas across 16 restaurants in the UK (and counting). Alongside pizza maps of their favourite global pizza cities the book is also packed with over 30 recipes to make sure you finally delete your local takeaway from speed dial #1. From an NY slice, to true Neapolitan pizza made in a frying pan, Pizza offers classic and new creations, including guest chefs’ signature takes, and the Pilgrims’ very own Nutella pizza ring! Oven fresh and packed with interviews, pizza facts, movie scenes, world records and even pizza tattoos, Pizza is illustrated with all manner of pie-based fun and written with a hearty dose of humour. The perfect companion for the pizza lover in your life. Fact.
Greenlights by Matthew McConaughey
From the Academy Award-winning actor comes an unconventional memoir filled with raucous stories, outlaw wisdom, and lessons learned the hard way about living with greater satisfaction. “I’ve been in this life for fifty years, been trying to work out its riddle for forty-two, and been keeping diaries of clues to that riddle for the last thirty-five. Notes about successes and failures, joys and sorrows, things that made me marvel, and things that made me laugh out loud. How to be fair. How to have less stress. How to have fun. How to hurt people less. How to get hurt less. How to be a good man. How to have meaning in life. How to be more me. Recently, I worked up the courage to sit down with those diaries. I found stories I experienced, lessons I learned and forgot, poems, prayers, prescriptions, beliefs about what matters, some great photographs, and a whole bunch of bumper stickers. I found a reliable theme, an approach to living that gave me more satisfaction, at the time, and still: If you know how, and when, to deal with life’s challenges, how to get relative with the inevitable, you can enjoy a state of success I call ‘catching greenlights’. So I took a one-way ticket to the desert and wrote this book: an album, a record, a story of my life so far. This is fifty years of my sights and seens, felts and figured-outs, cools and shamefuls. Graces, truths, and beauties of brutality. Getting away withs, getting caughts, and getting wets while trying to dance between the raindrops. Hopefully, it’s medicine that tastes good, a couple of aspirin instead of the infirmary, a spaceship to Mars without needing your pilot’s license, going to church without having to be born again, and laughing through the tears. It’s a love letter. To life. It’s also a guide to catching more greenlights-and to realising that the yellows and reds eventually turn green too. Good luck.”
From Popz.deals
Star Wars: The Mandalorian The Child Baby Yoda
It’s the series that’s taking the galaxy by storm. Set five years after the fall of the Empire as depicted in Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, and before the emergence of the First Order, Star Wars: The Mandalorian follows an independent Mandalorian bounty hunter “in the outer reaches of the galaxy far from the authority of the New Republic”. In Chapter 1, the Mandalorian takes a job to collect a 50 year-old bounty, which is actually “The Child”, or as he’s commonly referred to as “Baby Yoda” (even though we all know it’s not actually Yoda). You can now gift your Kris Kringle the cutest star wars character ever in a pop vinyl format.
Elf Movie: Buddy Collectable Vinyl Figure
Buddy was accidentally transported to the North Pole as a toddler and raised to adulthood among Santa’s elves. Unable to shake the feeling that he doesn’t fit in, the adult Buddy travels to New York, in full elf uniform, in search of his real father. As it happens, this is Walter Hobbs, a cynical businessman. After a DNA test proves this, Walter reluctantly attempts to start a relationship with the childlike Buddy with increasingly chaotic results. It’s a great feel-good movie with a delightful character…this Pop Vinyl will remind your Kris Kringle about the joy of Christmas.
From Bricko
Super Mario Adventures with Super Mario Starter Course Building Kit
For the past 35 years, Super Mario has been running, jumping, and saving the Mushroom Kingdom from bad guys. Now you can give the gift of Mario to your Kris Kringle this Christmas with this great starter course kit.
Star Wars Resistance Y-Wing Starfighter Set
Inspire your Kris Kringle with this LEGO Star Wars Resistance Y-Wing Starfighter model. This updated version of the classic fighter-bomber, a.k.a. wishbone, featured in the Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker movie, has a new colour scheme, open cockpit with space for a minifigure inside. This starship playset makes a great addition to any fan’s collection.
Enjoy!