What an interesting year 2020 has been. We are incredibly fortunate to be living on the farm, as it insulated us a little from the upheaval of Coronavirus. Even so, we found ourselves at home as a family more than usual, and we spent more time bringing to life a homesteader’s existence of at-home production and self-sufficiency. In the spirit of home-based life and on-farm living, here are our gift suggestions aimed at bringing joy, functionality, and health to you and yours this holiday season.

Important: Please note that many of the links in this guide are affiliate links. This means that if you purchase through these links, the price will be the same for you and we’ll receive a small commission that helps support our blog and our family. Many thanks for your support!

For the home: 

Engaging and fun gifts for kids that create learning opportunities while getting them out from in front of a screen. 

Watercolor journal – Sometimes kids just need the freedom to explore and express themselves on their own terms. Nature and art journals are a great way to engage that creative side of the brain. Our girls love them, and there are many options that are great for adults as well.

Kids Cook Real Food – Our three-year-old is a phenomenal chef. No really, she’s been known to make bacon and eggs for breakfast, she can blend up a smoothie of any color, and she demands to steam her own hot cocoa. Sound crazy? Well, it kind of is…but a big reason for her interest and ability in the kitchen comes from early exposure through the Kids Cook Real Food program. Our little girl’s passion for cooking may be a bit of an anomaly, but the program undoubtedly empowers kids and makes cooking fun for them.

Ceramic tea set – Little girls love tea parties, it’s just a fact of life. But why spend money on all of the plastic tea sets that cannot actually hold tea? Sure, there’s a place for pretend in children’s play, but we’ve found that encouraging real-life experience is more rewarding and enjoyable. That’s why we were happy to find a kid-sized ceramic tea set, that can be used for actual tea parties. Of course, a pretty heirloom set or thrift store find would be even cooler, but we all have to take what we can get.

Quality products for home-based food prep.

Thrive – We live a long ways from a grocery store. And, given how this year’s been, who wants to go to the grocery store anyway? Thrive is a great mail-delivery option for organic and natural product essentials. Depending on where you live, there are quality meat and alcoholic beverage options as well. 

Opinel knives – We love Opinel knives. All of our garden harvest knives are folding Opinels and their kids set for the kitchen is awesome. We cannot say enough good things and look forward to more Opinel knives in our kitchen.

Le Creuset – Quality cookware is absolutely essential and Le Creuset is one of the very best. Le Creuset has a wide range of products, all of which are great. But, the single most valuable product we recommend is their round enameled dutch oven. There’s a range of sizes, and if you’ve never used a dutch oven before, we recommend a small to medium one. The number of ways you can use a dutch oven are countless, but one of the uses we’ve found it to be indispensable for is baking sourdough bread. Check out Tartine Bread if you want to know why.

Lodge cast iron – Two cast iron cookware companies in one gift guide? Yep, we’re doing it. Listen, we love Le Creuset, but to suggest your kitchen should be outfitted with it is a bit over the top for most people. The good news, there are other companies producing very high quality cast iron at a more reasonable price point. Lodge is a USA-based company producing some of the best cast iron products from their own foundry in Tennessee. Lodge is a go to for cast iron products other than the enamel coated dutch ovens mentioned above.

Stainless steel everything – Stainless steel is our favorite material in the kitchen. Stainless steel plates, bowls and cups are easier to keep clean for the kids and they don’t break when inevitably dropped to the tile floor. Stainless steel mixing bowls are a go-to for food prep. Stainless steel straws are a long-lasting and easy to clean option for the daily smoothy with lunch. And, now that we have a dairy cow, our stainless steel milk pails and funnel make a regular pass through the wash line.

Instant Pot – The instant pot has been on our gift list for three years in a row. That’s how valuable it is in our kitchen. While we still use it for stewing and pressure cooking, the most frequent and regular use is for making yogurt. We’ve tried several different methods of making yogurt, and the instant pot is by far the most user friendly and it consistently produces excellent results. Given the amount of yogurt we make, that’s a pretty big deal.

Bib apron – We have an array of aprons around the farm. Harvest aprons for collecting produce from the gardens. Waterproof butcher aprons for use during chicken processing and vegetable washing. Cleaning aprons for those dirty jobs. And, of course, kitchen aprons. A good bib apron with criss-cross straps makes messes in the kitchen seem much more manageable and remains comfortable even over long hours of food prep or storage.

For the farm:

Farm work can be tough, here are some apparel and tools up to the test.

Wild rag – 100% silk wild rags are a great all-season neck covering. Wild rags are appropriate for men, women and children and there’s a range of styles available. It’s worth spending the money to ensure you get 100% silk, as rayon or polyester materials simply aren’t the same. We also recommend the large 36″ x 36″ size, as it makes it much easier to wear. Best of all, in this bizarre world we live in, wild rags can easily be worn as a face covering if you find yourself forgetting to bring along your mask when going out in public.

Custom hat – The more time we spend on the farm, the more we’ve come to appreciate high quality apparel. We spend a lot of time outside and we are hard on everything we wear. Hats are no exception. While you can make do for a few days with any old hat from a retail store, a custom fit and the highest quality materials make a marked difference when you’re wearing the hat everyday in all types of weather. We highly recommend Burns Custom Hats for felt hats, and we really like the palm straw hats from Sunbody Hats. 

Carhartt overalls – As indicated above, we put our apparel to the test. It’s caused us to raise our standards for some items. In fact, we’re not recommending any footwear because every brand we’ve had over the past two years has let us down in one way or another. But, one item that hasn’t let us down is our Carhartt overalls. Our overalls are getting more use than ever before as our go-to garb in the dairy parlor, and while the combination of spilled milk mixed with manure leaves them smelling worse for wear, we’re on pace for several more years of durability and comfort.

Hori Hori Knife – We use a lot of tools in the gardens, but our hori hori knives remain the most versatile and indispensable. This tool will replace every other short handled garden tool in your collection.

Makita impact driver – Our 18V lithium ion battery powered Makita impact drivers are probably 10 years old, and we put in thousands (maybe tens of thousands) of screws with them this year. Construction of several pole barns and countless side projects necessitated heavy use, and the drivers never slowed down for a second. Batteries need updating eventually (as all batteries do), but the drivers are compatible with new models and continue to drive screws one after another. 

Even farmers need to grow their brains, here are a few resources that have been go-to this season.

Audible membership – We enjoy the silence and solitude of being fully absorbed in a task at hand. Milking the cow, harvesting carrots, shaping a loaf of bread. But, there are moments when tasks get to be mundane and its nice to have an option for intellectual engagement during those moments. Audible allows us to enrich our minds without having to stop everything we’re doing. Even better, Audible has a robust collection of children’s books, and the kids have found audio books to be an acceptable alternative to us reading aloud when things are hopping in the kitchen.

The following books have been our go-to sources this year as we continue to learn new skills and look for inspiration in the kitchen: The Art of Natural Cheesemaking, The Prairie Homestead Cookbook, Dishing Up the Dirt, Dirt to Soil, Tartine Bread.

If you want to take a peek at our recommendations from previous years, check out our holiday gift guide from 2019 and 2018.