There are now eight or nine shopping days left before Christmas depending on when you traditionally open gifts. At my house, we open one gift after dinner on Christmas Eve and then the remainder on Christmas morning. The gifts that I’ve already opened were from a few holiday parties I attended over the last couple of weeks. Three parties with “white elephant” gift exchanges resulted in the acquisition of three bottles of various kinds of adult beverages. Admittedly, the gifts I brought along to exchange were also alcohol or alcohol related.
Have we become so single-minded and lazy that a bottle of booze is all we can come up with?
Now I know that there are a lot of you out there who are wondering what kind of gift to get your loved one who happens to work in the construction industry. Luckily, Kim Slowey of constructiondive.com has taken the time to help the rest of us, and came up with “The Ultimate Construction Holiday Gift Guide.”
The holiday season is here again, when it’s time to remember the people at all levels of your construction organization who make the wheels go round each day. We want to make your life a little easier by doing some legwork and offering several construction-related gift ideas. At the very least, we hope our suggestions will inspire you to help make a great holiday for everyone at your company. And we’ve included options for wallets of all sizes, so you don’t have to worry about busting your budget.
Cookie comfort
At this time of year, you can never go wrong with a food-related gift, so try out these construction-themed cookies. Marketplaces like Etsy feature multiple vendors selling these treats, and they have the benefit of coming as close to homemade as you’re going to find without doing it yourself. Since these online bakeshops are often solo operations, make sure to order in time for holiday delivery.
$30 construction-themed cookies on Etsy
Credit: Etsy ComfySweets
And if you’re ambitious in the kitchen, or if you’re running short on time or cash, use these cookie cutters to try your hand at re-creating these cookies yourself.
3-D inspiration
Here at Construction Dive, we’ve covered 3-D printing and the possibilities it has opened up in the construction industry. However, 3-D printing is impacting almost every other industry out there, and that provides an opportunity for some unique gift possibilities this year.
Shapeways is a marketplace for independent, 3-D-printed merchandise makers, and the site is loaded with all sorts of gifts in every price range. Christmas ornaments, smartphone cases and jewelry can all be customized. Miniature cities and model trains are fun options, and who doesn’t need a 3-D-printed sea turtle or lion’s head to hang on the wall?
$55 3-D-printed snowman ornament on Shapeways
Credit: Shapeways
Technology to the rescue
Tech is another hot area, and the construction industry has grown by leaps and bounds in the app arena. Because nearly everyone on a job site is armed with a smartphone these days, a helpful gift for colleagues and employees on the job site would be an Otter Box protective case, which can protect smartphones and tablets in the field from weather conditions, dirt and assorted bumps and drops.
But smartphones aren’t the only thing that can take a hit in the field, as construction jobs can take a significant physical toll on workers’ bodies. While U.S. Bionics’ construction exoskeleton isn’t on the market just yet, this DBI-Sala safety harness might be the next best thing. It distributes weight loads from the shoulders to the hips, thereby reducing shoulder fatigue and strain.
$511 DBI-Sala safety harness
Credit: Global Industries
However, at more than $500, the safety harness isn’t an option for everyone. Luckily, there are more inexpensive ways to ease the pain. The PharMeDoc lower back pillow with lumbar support is compatible with car seats, truck seats and office chairs. This Conair foot spa won’t break the bank either. Construction workers and supervisors are constantly on their feet, and a few minutes of a warm soak goes a long way. Speaking of relief, this Thumper percussive massager will work out years of muscle knots and stress and win you fans in the office and field.
Out-of-the-box options
The gift of time is something we can rarely give, but temporary staffing firms like Kelly and Aerotek are there to fill in if you want to give someone just that. A day away from the office without worrying about who is going to answer the phone or calculate those petty cash receipts might just be the perfect gift.
On a different note, for both longtime and new collectors, vintage construction tools and implements offer a holiday gift idea that involves unique, industry-related conversation pieces.
$113 vintage jewelers chasing chisels tool box on Collectors Weekly
Credit: Collectors Weekly
If you’re responsible for an office full of people and just can’t get your head around choosing so many many gifts at once, there’s always the old stand-by, the gift card. Giftcards.com offer Visa, Mastercard and other types of gift cards with holiday themes, and you can order them in multiple dollar amounts. You can even buy them in bulk with your company logo featured.
And if you’re truly out of ideas, you can always treat your loved one to a Forester University Webinar!
Here are a couple of webinars that are coming up soon. They’re not perfectly within the dirtmoving universe, but they are relevant.
Voodoo Hydrology—We rely upon common urban stormwater hydrologic design methodologies and trust their results…but should we? Join returning speaker Andy Reese as he exposes the black box of urban hydrology and explores its common stormwater methodologies! In this webinar, Andy will (with his normal humor) “lay bare” the key elements, assumptions, and most common misuses of popular urban stormwater methodologies, as well as recommendations for proper application of each.
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