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10 Great Stocking Stuffers

Got the big items out of the way? Now’s the time to find some small, cheap items to stuff in the stockings.

Author:: Matt Brownell
Publish date:: Nov 30, 2010 7:00 AM EST

NEW YORK (MainStreet) – So, you camped out at Best Buy on Black Friday eve and walked away with a great deal on a new TV, video game system or washer/dryer set. Sadly, none of those items will fit into a stocking. And despite the big discount you scored, that new TV still ate up a lot of your holiday budget. So if you’re looking to fill up the stockings hung by the chimneys with care, you’re going to have to go small and go cheap. Here are a few ideas. Photo Credit: Squirrel Cottage

NEW YORK (MainStreet) – So, you camped out at Best Buy on Black Friday eve and walked away with a great deal on a new TV, video game system or washer/dryer set. Sadly, none of those items will fit into a stocking. And despite the big discount you scored, that new TV still ate up a lot of your holiday budget. So if you’re looking to fill up the stockings hung by the chimneys with care, you’re going to have to go small and go cheap. Here are a few ideas. Photo Credit: Squirrel Cottage

Sure, you could just fill up the stockings with candy bars, but where’s the fun in that? Candy Poopers from Five Below have beloved holiday characters “poop” candy into a stove-pipe hat (Frosty the Snowman), chimney (Santa) or sack (reindeer). It’s the most fun you can have for $3! Photo Credit: FiveBelow.com

One problem with getting your kids a new video game console is that they’ll soon be demanding games to play on it. And that can get expensive if they’re looking for the latest ones, like Call of Duty: Black Ops ($59.99 at most retailers). Head them off at the pass by stuffing their stockings with marked-down video games from holidays past, like Lego Star Wars: The Complete Saga ($19.99 at Toys R Us). Photo Credit: Toysrus.com

USB memory sticks keep getting cheaper, meaning you can gift several gigabytes of portable storage without spending too much. Best Buy, for instance, has a nice selection of inexpensive flash drives, with a 4 GB stick selling as cheap as $14.99. Photo Credit: molotalk

If you just paid $200 or more for a smartphone for your kid, you’ll want to protect your investment. Cases for smartphones provide drop protection at a relatively cheap price, and also provide some stylistic flair. Speck, for instance, produces a variety of cases for iPhones, BlackBerrys and Android phones, with prices ranging from $17 for some BlackBerry cases, to around $35 for iPhone 4 hard shell cases. Photo Credit: Mujitra

Perfect for the whiskey lover in your life, whiskey stones allow you to chill your liquor of choice without watering it down with ice cubes. Just store the stones in the freezer to cool them down, then pop them in your glass when it’s whiskey o’clock. Sure, you could just put the whiskey in the freezer and save $19.95, but this just looks so much cooler. Photo Credit: igb

Small, versatile and available in numerous values, gift cards are about the simplest stocking stuffer around. For instance, you can get an iTunes gift card for the music lover in your family (available in price points from $15 to $100, including a special edition Beatles gift card). Photo Credit: Danielle Scott

Most coffee chains will sell bags of their coffee beans so you can brew your own at home. Dunkin Donuts, for instance, sells its original blend of coffee beans in one-, four-, and five-pound packages ($7.99, $19.99 and $37.49, respectively). Photo Credit: DunkinDonuts.com

For the special woman in your life, you probably can't go wrong with scents, lotions and perfumes. Take this Japanese Cherry Blossom set from Bath and Body Works, which includes two-ounce bottles of shower gel, body lotion and fragrance mist, plus a tube of cherry lip gloss. It also includes a plastic martini shaker for some reason, but I’d advise against making a cocktail out of shower gel. Photo Credit: bathandbodyworks.com

Socks in a sock! It’s almost too perfect. You could go to a department store, or order some funky knee-highs from a site like Sock It To Me. Photo Credit: Ahmed Rabea

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, everybody will be breaking out their favorite family recipes. Collect them on index cards and stick them in your kids’ stockings – it doesn’t cost you anything, and they’ll thank you when they’re headed off to college and need to cook their own meals. If you don’t have too many family recipes, you can always find free recipes on sites like Epicurious.com and AllRecipes.com. Photo Credit: Sistak

Join the MainStreet team and other readers on our lively Facebook page! Discuss our newest stories and get links to breaking content, automatically. Click here to add us. Photo Credit: Facebook.com

Go Small (And Cheap)

NEW YORK (MainStreet) – So, you camped out at Best Buy on Black Friday eve and walked away with a great deal on a new TV, video game system or washer/dryer set. Sadly, none of those items will fit into a stocking. And despite the big discount you scored, that new TV still ate up a lot of your holiday budget. So if you’re looking to fill up the stockings hung by the chimneys with care, you’re going to have to go small and go cheap. Here are a few ideas. Photo Credit: Squirrel Cottage