16 very Miami gifts for everyone on your holiday list
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A Cuban guayabera. Photo: Roberto Machado Noa/LightRocket via Getty Images
I have family and friends in Germany, and every year they send my son and me amazing — and very German — holiday gifts.
We've received: a cuckoo clock, beer steins, a Fortuna Dusseldorf soccer jersey, a schnitzel cookbook, traditional gingerbread hearts, and really cute egg holders.
- It's totally a thing to soft-boil eggs the German way and serve them in Eierbecher (egg cups)!
The rub: Every year, we're stumped about what to send Tante Burga and Tante Leonie in return.
- I already sent them everything I could find from Wings with the word "Miami" on it. I also sent the coconut monkey from my cocktail at Shuckers (though I suspect these are mass-produced and carved elsewhere).
So last week, I asked readers to recommend "very Miami" holiday gifts, and you all delivered!
Thanks for suggesting:
- This flamingo Christmas ornament
- Products from the Design Store at the Wolfsonian Museum
- Cuban cookbooks
- Guayaberas
- A block of guava paste
- Key lime pie
- Cafecito cups
- Something from poetry organization O, Miami: like the literary Jai-Alai Magazine or a T-shirt!
I've also compiled a few more ideas for those on your holiday shopping list:
- A book from Miami author Carl Hiaasen. I like "Tourist Season." My middle-schooler recommends "Scat."
- A trinket with a Romero Britto design, or a whole matching outfit if you dare!
- Locally brewed beer. My default is Miami Weiss from MIA Brewing, because "Weiss" (which means white) is pronounced "Vice." Very clever, MIA!
- Miracle fruit. Eat it, and everything you eat afterward will taste sweet. But really, any jams or sauces from Homestead fruit stand Robert Is Here will please a crowd.
- Anything from Art by God. Can't really say this place screams "Miami," but holiday shopping is a great excuse to pop into this fascinating store, which sells natural treasures like fossilized mastodon teeth, "fox penis bones," and has a whole section of "horn art."
- A subscription to the News in Slow Spanish app, so visitors can brush up on high school-level español before you take them for a night out on Calle Ocho.
- Name a sea turtle after someone. I love gifts that have no packaging! This benefits the nonprofit Sea Turtle Oversight Protection, which has an army of volunteers on beaches protecting turtles during hatchout season.
- Hot pink nail polish. Sadly, our faraway loved ones can't always rip down Ocean Drive in a Slingshot and party their faces off at E11even — but they can look ready to!
In all seriousness, though, we hope your holiday is filled with love and friendship instead of consumerism. Truly, the most "Miami" thing you can give someone is a good time!