White elephant gift exchanges will likely be a bit different this year. Perhaps you and your loved ones will gather outdoors or sit inside wearing masks. Or maybe you’ll meet entirely online (and thus ship your gifts). However you’re celebrating, the basic tenet of what makes a white elephant exchange successful remains—yes, everyone should leave with an entertaining, silly gift, but ideally it should also be useful. From Wirecutter staffers, here are the gifts that made us smile.
Even if your journey to the office these days is from your bed to the kitchen table, a briefcase can help you get into the work mindset. (Though for now you may just use it to store your laptop when it’s time to eat.) If you’re traveling to an office, a briefcase is a stylish, professional way to carry your stuff. (For heavy loads, however, it won’t be as ergonomically friendly as a backpack or messenger bag.) We’ve tested 25 briefcases over the past three years—loading them up and then walking, running, commuting, biking, and flying with them. These six should work for many different carrying needs, looks, and budgets.
It’s the first law of holiday-shopping physics: Just as Black Friday sales kicked off a few days in advance of Black Friday proper, so shall Cyber Monday promotions linger for several days after Cyber Monday has come and gone.
Superfans of Wirecutter know that every month, we publish a list of the top-selling products recommended on our site. Look through enough of them, and you get a glimpse not just of what readers are buying, but how those habits change (readers loved towels last year, but quarantine calls for resistance bands).
What readers are buying only provides part of the story, though. There’s also what Wirecutter fans are reading—the posts about things they’re researching, comparison-shopping, and, well, thinking about buying. And that’s not even to mention the Wirecutter pieces that don’t have much to do with shopping at all: the stories in which we bust myths, give advice, and answer burning reader questions.
Whether you’re buying a first or second monitor for your desktop computer or buying a big screen to use with your laptop at home, a good monitor is a wise investment. There’s no single monitor that will work best for everyone, but our monitor guides cover all kinds of different sizes, uses, and prices, from basic 24-inch budget models to big 4K screens to high-refresh-rate gaming monitors. Here are the best ones we can find, and what kinds of things they’re good for.
Let’s face it, we’re all a little bit of a mess in our own way, especially in the kitchen, which is why you can never have too many kitchen towels. Having a thick stack on hand will ensure you’re always ready to sop up messes, wipe down counters, and dry hands, dishes, and produce. We’ve wiped up gallons of spills and dried countless dishes with 25 towels since 2014, and the Williams Sonoma All Purpose Pantry Towels are our favorite. They’re absorbent, durable, affordable, and available in a rainbow of colors.
For people who love plants, in their homes and out in nature, there’s no better gift than one that complements their hobby. Plants are in constant conversation—not just with soils, light, temperature, and water, but also with us. To celebrate that relationship, we’ve curated gifts that will inspire the green thumb in your life to learn about, tend, and celebrate the plants around them in unexpected, delightful ways.
