Bonfire's 2024 gift guide of unexpected delights
Unique gift ideas for your creative colleagues and business-building friends
Tis the season to have a bunch of gift guides flood your inbox!
Here we are joining the trend but hopefully doing so in a bit of a different way. Gift-giving is one of the five love languages—but importantly, not all gifts need to be tangible or commercial: the act of giving can still communicate love and generosity whether or not you’re giving and receiving physical gifts, particularly if you or your recipient are mindful of materialism, budgets, or space. One’s closet can only contain so many Moleskine notebooks until one needs a new closet (or to give some notebooks away).
We have certainly felt loved in a lot of ways during this first year of Bonfire business by all the generosity from our friends, followers, and families.
So with this gift-giving spirit in mind, we put together a list of some uncommon and unexpected gifting ideas inspired by what has been meaningful to us in 2024. We hope these ides might be helpful to you and yours as you’re thinking about gifting this holiday season.
Spark some creativity!
Gift a domain name (browse some options here)
We had a handful of domain-related adventures this year: we forked over $2,000 for our aroundthebonfire.com domain well before we were reliably earning $2,000, we bought a handful of tiny joke domains that may become some fun projects in 2025 (stay tuned), and we had the privilege of doing coaching with an awesome marketer who runs brand for the top-level domain .store.
These days, most creative projects need a digital home. Whether it’s a portfolio, a personal website, a microsite, or something just for fun, a domain name can be an inspiring option to get someone thinking creatively. We’re biased, but why not gift someone a .store domain if they’re selling something!
Send a Midjourney gift card (purchase here)
The surreal images you see at the top of every Bonfire newsletter are made in Midjourney, an AI image generator that takes Shannon’s prompts and turns them into images. What better way to let someone’s imagination run wild than to give them an AI companion that will turn literally anything into an image—so long as you don’t mind the occasional six-fingered hand.
Craft a digital collection: a Pinterest board or a Spotify playlist
Are Pinterest boards and Spotify playlists the new mixtape? Maybe not, but they do a great job of letting someone know you’re thinking of them and showing off a bit of your personality to boot. We used a Pinterest board as inspiration for some of our first Bonfire brand designs (er, technically it became more like what we didn’t want to do), and the song Eye of the Tiger was the backdrop, played through Shannon’s Spotify speakers, to our first pressing of the launch button on our Bonfire announcement social posts.
Upgrade their free software to a paid version
For the creative friend or business colleague who’s getting by with a free version of a favorite tool, what a difference it can make to upgrade to features that remove even a tiny bit of friction from an essential part of their daily workflow. We’ve noticed this with upgraded Loom licenses (no more five-minute limit!) or with premium Zoom (sooo many new features). Here’s a look at our full, upgraded tech stack in case it gives you any ideas of what gift you could give to others:
Slack
Notion
Zoom
Loom
Calendly
Google Workspace
Encourage someone to keep going
Leave a comment on someone’s LinkedIn post or Substack
This is not a naked attempt to get you to comment on this Substack newsletter. Rather, this is a call to be generous in your support of the future things you see from your friends. A little comment can go a long way.
Send an email or letter to a friend, just saying hi
We love hearing from our friends, so it stands to reason that our friends might like hearing from us. The “thinking of you” note can be especially uplifting for solopreneurs or stressed-out in-house folks who can sometimes feel alone.
Bonus, you can turn this into a New Year’s resolution in a month from now.
Make an introduction
We had the opportunity to work with a super cool global supply chain company this year thanks to one little email introduction sent from someone in our network. Thank you, someone! The introductions you make don’t have to be business deals; they can be friendly intros, skill matches, interest matches, or even values matches—“You two just seem like you’d get along swimmingly!”
Send a lil meme
The number of Bonfire business ideas that have come from TikTok and Instagram videos is not zero. It’s fun to give and receive something cool you find online, and it technically means your scrolling can be classified as research / friendship-building.
Make something for them (Bonus: you get to be creative!)
A homemade gift—a drawing, some pottery, an art and craft, etc.—is one of the most unique and priceless gifts you can give to someone. Plus, the act of giving a homemade gift necessitates you creating the homemade gift, which is a wonderful reason to spend time in your creative practice. Earlier this year, Shannon explored this concept through the lens of redefining creative “success,” thinking of success with a broad definition, including how it feels to give to others.
“I don’t make a lot of things that I don’t give away. And often, I make things with particular people in mind. Now, when I visit my friends and family, I see my watercolors on their walls or fridges. I like knowing that they have these little monuments to my affection for them. I like feeling connected to and present in their lives, even when I’m far away. And their excitement and appreciation for them is a reward in and of itself that keeps me creating.”
Show up and show out
RSVP to a friend’s event
Over the past several months, we’ve held a few little gatherings over Zoom and have been so honored to have people say yes to our invites and give us 30 to 60 minutes of their days. If you have 30 to 60 minutes to spare, this can be a great gift for your friends and colleagues who are setting up workshops or webinars or events and hoping for a good turnout.
Invite someone to that online community you love
How special it can feel to be invited into an inner circle, even if that inner circle is a Slack group. If there are places you enjoy hanging out online, it can be a wonderful gift to bring others along with you.
(Speaking of online communities, stay tuned for some community updates from Bonfire in the new year!)
Donate to a charity of their choice (or your choice)
Last week we announced a Brand Together initiative for minority-owned organizations. (If you are one of these organizations or know of one, we highly encourage you to apply!) There are so many great and worthy causes out there, and giving to any of these causes on behalf of a friend, colleague, or family member can be a wonderful way to give this holiday season.
Here are some non-profits doing good work for underrepresented communities:
Share their work on your socials
Talk about a good and simple way to be an ally for someone. If there are voices in your network that you’d like to amplify, a simple little gift would be to share people’s work on whatever platform you happen to have. We are very grateful for all the folks who have shouted us out this year. Every bit of attention makes a difference!
Over to you
What are some of the unique ways you’re thinking about giving gifts this holiday season? We’d love to hear your ideas!
For more…
Follow us on LinkedIn and on Instagram. Stay tuned to our Substack space for new community features and ways to meet your fellow subscribers.
And let us know if you’d like to go deeper with us to talk about you and creativity. We do:
1:1 coaching and mentorship
Team workshops and consulting for marketing and leadership
Speaking and appearances on podcasts and at events
Happy holidays and congrats on a great year!
LOL at "The number of Bonfire business ideas that have come from TikTok and Instagram videos is not zero."