Behind the scenes: How I come up with gift ideas

This website has been a labor of love, and, as I state on the homepage, my twofold purpose with Christmas Giving is to help you choose what and how to give (or not to give), plus encourage you as we celebrate the reason for the season: Jesus Christ.

But I’m just a gal sitting at a keyboard, and it’s a big job.

Some of the posts are easy: As a lifelong reader and an author, I could come up with book recommendations all day long.

My gift ideas for book lovers (mugs, apparel, décor, journals, and more) came from a combination of my own brain cells, Etsy searches, and the contributions of a dear author friend who seems to know more places to find little book-related goodies than I could ever come up with.

For the recommendations about actual books (that post is not published yet – and it’s not the same thing as gift ideas for book lovers), I’ve gathered a mix of my own beloved reads, trustworthy suggestions from my friend who has six children (same friend as above), another friend’s Facebook post (she asked her friends for recommendations), and AI.

And because I used AI and the suggestions of friends of a friend, I’m still checking out each and every book mentioned. I want to offer titles that are clean and wholesome – books you won’t be embarrassed to buy or recommend.

Vetting all the suggestions takes time. Good thing I’ve already read a lot of them! 📚

(I promise to have that post published the first week of December, Lord willin’ and the creek don’t rise. After that, a post that focuses solely on Christmas reads!)

But for other lists, I need a little more help from my AI friends Claude.ai and Mr. Chatty (that’s what I call ChatGPT).

While I’m a tech nerd, I don’t play video games, and I don’t have non-Apple devices. So, although most of my gift ideas for techies came from AI searches, you need to understand: For every single item AI suggested, I searched Amazon to make sure it was legit, and I added each link manually with my fat little fingers. (If you notice a bad link, please let me know.)

Claude and Mr. Chatty only offered suggestions. I followed up with a search and the labor required to give you quick access.

For other gift posts, I used the same methods: my personal knowledge, friends’ recommendations, AI …

And maybe a few suggestions from the Grinch? (After his heart grew three sizes, of course.)

The best place to get ideas is from personal recommendations. If you have a gift idea (or a blog post suggestion), please leave a comment or contact me here.