Gifts · Christmas

Christian stocking stuffers
that aren’t junk

Most Christian stocking stuffers are a verse printed on something — a mug, a keyring, a bookmark with tassels — and they are received politely and never used. The test I applied to everything below is whether it would still be in the house in March, doing a job. Small, useful, and nothing with Scripture in script on it.

They sort by who is opening the stocking, because a stocking is the one gift where you are allowed to be specific. Nothing here is expensive; the whole list is the kind of thing you add three of to the cart without thinking about it.

Two of the items below are our own titles, and I say so where they appear. The rest are paid, sponsored links — I earn a commission if you buy through one, at no extra cost to you. I have not used every product here and I say so on each one. No prices on this page; Amazon changes them constantly, so click through and see what it costs today.

For her

A journal she can actually keep. Most gift journals are too beautiful to write in and too blank to start; the ones that get used ask one small thing a week and give her the Scripture to answer it with.

Our own title · one page a week

Be Still: A 52-Week Christian Gratitude Journal — a Scripture, a reflection and space to name the week’s gifts, once a week, for a year. This is our own title, so I’ll skip the pitch; it exists because one page a week is the smallest commitment that still counts as a practice, and small enough that a bad January doesn’t end it. Paperback, stocking-sized.

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Muted highlighters that suit a Bible page

Fifteen dual-ended highlighters in a muted palette, made for thin paper and one of the most-bought highlighters on Amazon. Not bleed-tested here — the two-minute test is the first thing to do with them — but the colours are the reason to give this set over the neon one she already owns.

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Tabs, in a palette she will not mind

Seventy-five laminated tabs, matte, with the placement guide in the packet. The gift that costs the least on this page and gets used every day the Bible is opened. Which books to tab is the part worth writing on the card.

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For him

Men are given devotionals written for someone else, which is why the devotional he was given last year is under the bed. The one below was written for the man who has something he keeps swearing off and going back to, and it says so on the cover.

Our own title · ninety days, for a man

The Damascus Road: A 90-Day Devotional for Men on Breaking Free and Staying Free. This is our own title, so I’ll skip the pitch; it is written for the man with a specific thing he cannot say no to — the drink, the screen, the anger — and it names that on the first page rather than in week six. Paperback. Give it to the man who will not buy it for himself, which is the man it is for.

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A pen that does not bleed through a Bible

Archival pigment fineliners, six tip sizes, black. The one pen a man who marks his Bible should own and almost never does, because it is sold to illustrators. I have not written in my own Bible with these; the ink argument is here and it is the whole case.

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For the one who memorises

A stocking-sized version of the memory box: a hundred cards, five dividers, one case, and the five-section system on the card that goes in the stocking with it.

The box, the cards and the dividers, in one order

A 3×5 index card case with a hundred ruled cards and five dividers. Unremarkable, inexpensive, and exactly the shape of a one-person Scripture memory system. I have not used this particular case; the contents are on the listing. Write one verse on the first card before you wrap it.

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For a grandparent

Large-print puzzle books are the most-opened books in a lot of older households, and nearly all of them are secular. This one puts a King James passage at the top of every page and hides its words in the grid below — so the puzzle is reading the verse first.

Our own title · large print, a verse on every page

Large Print KJV Bible Word Search: Hidden in My Heart — a hundred puzzles, each one built from the Scripture passage printed above it in big type. This is our own title, so I’ll skip the pitch; it exists because nearly every large-print word search on the shelf is secular, and this one asks you to read the passage before you go looking for it.

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For a child

Two, for two ages. A picture book for Christmas Eve, and a workbook for the wet Saturday in January when the verse from breakfast needs something to be done with it.

Christmas Eve, ages three to seven

Max Lucado’s The Christmas Story for Children — the nativity told plainly, in a size that fits a stocking and a lap. It is the one book on this page most likely to be read aloud on the day it is opened.

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Ages five to eight, for after Christmas

77 Memory Verses Every Kid Should Know — seventy-seven short verses, each on its own page to read, copy out and colour. The copying is the part that earns it: writing the verse is a rehearsal the child does not notice. How to do Scripture memory at home without a programme is the page to give with it.

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What not to put in a stocking

A verse on a mug. A verse on a keyring. A verse on a bookmark, a bracelet, a wall hanging or a phone case. A tiny devotional chosen by its cover. All of these are received with the same face, and it is the face people make when they have been handed something to keep rather than something to use.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights. James 1:17