Many people around the world are already in the thick of celebrating a host of international holidays, including Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and more. If you’re celebrating a holiday involving gifts and you’re not sure what to buy the beloved WordPress geek in your life, we have a few suggestions. Even if you don’t celebrate any holidays, you may want to stash these ideas away for birthdays. After conducting a quick poll on Twitter, it turns out there are many ways to make your favorite WordPress fan happy. Here are a few suggestions based on the replies I received:
WordPress Coffee Mug
The new WordPress coffee mug is available from the WordPress swag store. I gifted one to myself and can say that it’s just as handsome and shiny as it appears to be in the picture. The back says, “Proudly Powered by Coffee.” This cup is the perfect size – it contains the exact amount of coffee I can drink before it gets cold.
A License to Sublime Text
The Sublime Text editor is a best friend to many people who write code. Many developers consider it to be the holy grail of text editing tools.
If you can sneak around and verify that your friend is using an unlicensed copy, a surprise license given as a gift will delight the socks off of him or her.
Jetpack Battery Pack
The Jetpack Battery Pack is a fancy, portable external battery charger. Emblazoned with the Jetpack logo, this unique gift provides a quick charge to cell phones and other mobile devices. The Jetpack Battery Pack is only available from the WordPress Swag Store.
A Treehouse Membership
Treehouse is a place where the WordPress fan in your life can pick up new skills by enrolling in courses that teach everything from design to mobile development to business skills. Technology enthusiasts love to learn new things and a gift membership might be just the right avenue. Also, Treehouse donates an account to a public school student for every new Gold account purchased.
BuddyPress Theme Development
BuddyPress Theme Development is a book that will teach you how to create BuddyPress themes from start to finish. You couldn’t find a better gift for the BuddyPress designer, developer or enthusiast in your life. BuddyPress Theme Development is available on Amazon in paperback or kindle version.
Gravity Forms
Gravity Forms is the beloved form-builder of choice for many WordPress users. These days Gravity Forms is going far beyond just building forms with their latest release introducing a complete API. The WordPress person in your life may already have a Gravity Forms license, so you may need to engage in a little bit of creative questioning to find out.
Professional WordPress Plugin Development
If you’ve got an aspiring WordPress plugin developer on your gift list, the Professional WordPress Plugin Development book is an excellent choice. There’s certainly a lot to learn for free online but sometimes it helps to have information in a book to take you through different topics in an organized way. Professional WordPress Plugin Development is available on Amazon via paperback or kindle.
A CodePen Account
CodePen is a site where developers can edit HTML, CSS, and JavaScript code in the browser and see instant previews of its output. It’s a fun place to play with code and share your creations. A CodePen Pro account allows the user unlimited private pens, asset hosting, collaboration mode and more.
WordPress T-Shirt
You can never go wrong with a WordPress T-shirt as a gift. T-shirts and hoodies are pretty much the standard uniform of many tech professionals. The WordPress Swag Store has a nice assortment of t-shirts and hoodies in both men’s and women’s fits.
The Gift of Time
One of the most common replies I received to my WordPress gifts survey was time. Everyone needs more time in the day. For those who have families, it can be particularly tough to fit in a full-time job, time with the kids and contributions to open source projects. Giving someone the gift of time is nearly impossible, but there are ways to approximate it. Offer to babysit, make a meal, perform some car maintenance or time-consuming chores. Efforts to help your friend or family member free up time could be far more meaningful than any gift you could buy.
Give the gift of a ticket and trip to WordCamp Miami 2014 on May 23-25th.
Shameless plug is shameful.