These are dark times.
Is it any wonder that our family’s top gifts of Christmas 2021 were crazy lights?
I always love hearing about what other people got for Christmas, and what other families’ favorite gifts were.
That’s why, just as I usually publish a pre-holiday gift guide with my best ideas for your holiday shopping needs, I often run a post-Christmas rundown to share our top hits from that year.
This year, Christmas felt a little different. Xage isn’t a little kid anymore. Some of that holiday magic and sparkle is now just a nostalgic memory of yesteryear.
Last year was the first time we ever put all the wrapped gifts under the tree when they were ready, rather than waiting and doing a big reveal on Christmas morning.
The upside of this is that the tree looks really pretty when packed with gifts, so we got to enjoy that bountiful and beautiful sight for longer than just five minutes on Christmas morning. But the downside is missing that giddy anticipation of going to bed Christmas Eve with an empty tree, and waking up to a dazzling array of gifts allegedly brought by Santa in the night.
Anyway, let’s face it, the holidays have also felt different for a while now because of Covid. We tried to make the best of it by having a merry time just us three, with the dogs and Galaxy rounding it out to six of us opening gifts and celebrating.
Maybe that’s another reason why bright, colorful and twinkling lights were such a hit for us this year – to chase away dark thoughts of the global pandemic? Or maybe we just like to keep it lit.
Anyway here, without further ado, were four of our family’s top gifts of 2021:
- Dormify’s “Evil Eye” neon sign. While this particular sign sold out pretty fast, Dormify still has a cool collection of other neon signs perfect for tween or teen bedrooms. I was so glad Xage loved this gift, but if they hadn’t I would have been perfectly happy to put it up in my office! I’ve always loved neon signs and they make cool room accessories for the kid who has everything.
- Sunset lamps are very hot right now thanks to TikTok. I got a cheap little robot sunset lamp on Shein, but you can also find dozens of them on Amazon. They make cool backdrops for videos or photo shoots in your room. What can I say, I’m a sucker for stuff like this. Accent lighting is awesome.
- Amazon’s Bliss Lights Sky Light 2.0 aurora projector. With more than 52K reviews on Amazon, E figured he couldn’t go wrong getting this awesome starry sky projector for me for Christmas. And I loved it! The trouble was, by the time I opened it Christmas morning, we had both already seen the aurora projector I had gotten for Xage – and that one was even cooler. The Sky Light projector has red, green and blue aurora colors along with a grid of blue stars. We didn’t like how fake the star grid looked, though – and we were already in love with the myriad of colors available – plus the moon – in the other model.
- Accent Studio LA’s Northern Lights projector. Instead of wrapping this for Xage under the tree, I had the idea to set it up and plug it in so that when they came home Christmas Eve night, they would see it projecting Aurora Beaurealis on our living room ceiling. It was an instant hit for our entire family! The Accent Studio projector features limitless color options, green stars and a very cool, realistic-looking moon. It’s now set up in Xage’s room and every night when I walk the dogs, I enjoy peeking up at their window to see the moon, stars and Northern lights. This was the clear winner in our family’s aurora projector battle – in fact, E returned the one he got for me from Amazon so we could buy another of these for our room. It’s that epic!
If you like cool lighting effects in your house too, you can’t go wrong with any of these. We are very big fans of cool lighting in just about every room of our house. Heck, hubby even has multiple light effects in one of his hotrods.
What were the favorite gifts of 2021 at your house? I’d love to hear your holiday tales in the comments below or over on Facebook or Instagram.
