Christmas is known as the season of giving, and the tradition has always brought friends and family together, showing gratitude for one another. As Winter break rolls around, Andover students have begun to ponder what gifts they should get. Are you struggling to find what the perfect Christmas gift would be? Well, this is the perfect place for you, as students and The Phillipian staff share advice and plans they have on gift-giving!
Daniel Zhang ’28
“I’m giving this gift to Elliot Chang ’28, and the gift itself is the new Beats Pill speaker. It’s a medium-sized/smaller-sized speaker that looks really good. It looks like a pill (hence the name), and you can use it to listen to music. I want to get this gift for Elliot because he’s a really big music fan, and he always likes to blast music. A speaker is really on theme for his personality. I don’t particularly [plan on giving other people gifts]. [Usually], on Christmas day, during Winter break, me and my family eat a meal together.”
Emily Wu ’25
“I got a bunch [of Christmas gifts]. I get funny, useless gifts because everyone in my family or my friends knows what they want. I’m getting one of my friends a duck lamp, I’m getting one of my friends fuzzy socks… some table-top things, things that they don’t need. Some of the stuff that I give is really specific. For example, if there’s an inside joke such as [calling my friend] a duck, then I’m going to give them a duck. [I would recommend giving some] fuzzy animals, or useless tiny things [as a Christmas gift]. It’s like a one-size fits all equation to give to friends and family.”
Evelyn Kung ’26
“Something I think would be really good would be a digi[tal] cam, but more specifically the Sony camera because it’s the one my friend has. Since hers broke, I want to get her another one, so we can keep taking really good Instagram pictures… On the holidays, you take a lot of cute winter pictures, a lot of cute holiday pictures, like by the tree, family pictures, Christmas with your friends, so having a really nice digital camera would be really good for the holidays. It’s just practical because it’s nice to have a good camera. And then I think the gift would work best for either kids my age or maybe middle-aged or younger adults because older adults may have a harder time working with the camera. And also digi[tal] cams are really, really popular with teenagers and high schoolers.”
Emmanuel Okeke ’27
“The first object that comes to mind is a pair of Jordans because, personally, I’m a sneakerhead, so I really enjoy shoes and that type of stuff. And it doesn’t necessarily have to be Jordans. With the weather now, like snow, maybe you could give someone a pair of UGGs, like winter boots, something around that. Really, it could be anything because shoes fall under different types of categories depending on the needs… I’m from Atlanta and there’s a big sneaker culture there, so growing up I’ve always had a lot of Air Maxes, Jordans, [and] different types of shoes. That’s where it started, but I know right now I have a rotation of Jordans too.
Barrett Kim ’27
“A really good gift is a custom keyboard. Because I personally like doing a lot of things with my hands and crafts and engineering stuff, building computers and building a keyboard. It’s a gift that my friend from my old school gave me and then my parents also got me one during some holiday. It was just a really fun thing to do: clicking on all the switches, keycaps, and baseboards… A good aspect of the gift is that it can just be used. I know a lot of gifts people use for a week, and then just stop using. I feel like that’s a big waste. While the gift itself is nice, it’s not a good gift if you don’t use it. So if you actually use the gift, it’s a good one, which is why I would recommend this.”
