10 Christmas Gifts For Your Expat Friend (Part 2)

Ho, ho, ho! Good will to you, dear friends of expats! In case you missed the first part of my amazing Christmas gift so you can send your friend abroad the perfect present, you can find part 1 of this awesome gift list here.

Let’s move on to the second part of my list. Grab yourself some spiked eggnog and get your mailing stamps ready to send your expat friend some lovely Christmas cheer!

6. Tampons

We’re all adults here. We can talk about these things. If you happen to be a silly squeamish boy, go on to number 7. If you happen to be an awesome friend, send your sweet expat friend tampons for Christmas – only if your friend is a girl of course. With the mark up of Western brand tampons, your friend will be happier than a drunk elf on Christmas when she opens her fed ex box and finds you sent her preferred brand of feminine products.

7. Camera Gear

Moving abroad can turn any tech illiterate person into an aspiring amateur photographer. From go-pros to selfie sticks, your friend probably has a pretty decent collection of photo gear. Why not appeal to the artistic side of your buddy and surprise them with a holiday treat they’ll love, like a new camera lens or shiny new go pro?

Who knows, if your friend’s blog or photography win any awards, you might get a mention in their autobiography someday! “This book is dedicated to my dear friend [insert your name here] who bought me my very first go pro while I lived abroad in South Korea. I’ll never forget that amazing Christmas present.” Doesn’t that sounds lovely?

8. A Subscription To National Geographic Magazine

This gift is perfect for your friend who owns a kindle or iPad because you can send this gift wirelessly. No crazy shipping fees or worrying about how your gift is going to reach the top of the cold Korean mountains because your gift is sent via the Internet! Thoughtful and convenient, it’s a win-win for everyone.

Not to mention, at the current time this list is published, Amazon has a promotion for certain magazines that allows the buyer to get hard copies and a kindle subscription for an all-inclusive price. Meaning your friend can have the kindle copies, and you can sneakily have all the hard copies sent to yourself for keeps! (It’ll be our little secret. Merry Christmas to you, partner in crime!)

9. Kindle or iPad

For you big spenders out there, show your friend you care by dropping a pretty penny on them. Kindles and iPads have a pretty costly markup in Asia, and there isn’t the oh-so-convenient luxury of BestBuys or black Friday sales for us foreigners to punch out others in order to get a nice discount on an e-reader. You, however, are in a position where you can get those things.

While your black eyes from the black Friday mobs might not thank you, your expat friend certainly will when she opens her present and finds a lovely new e-reader to use while she lounges on Asian beaches and sips fruity cocktails – hm, that probably doesn’t make you want to purchase this gift for her does it? Scratch that then, she’ll use the e-reader when she’s suffering from “deskwarming” at her Korean school all by herself while all the Korean teachers and students have vacation.

Sometimes they won’t even turn on the heater for her! The only thing that’ll keep her warm is her heart when she reads from her Kindle and happily remembers that she has a friend who loves her.

10. A New Bikini Or Swim Trunks

Now that shops are putting forth their best winter coats, all of those skimpy itty-bitty bikinis are being marked down to insanely low costs. You can probably jump on the Victoria’s Secret website and get your friend the perfect bikini for mere pennies, and she’ll love it. If there’s one thing Asia has a hard time doing right, it’s bikinis. They’re often awkwardly conservative and come with tacky swim skirts and cover-ups.

New swim wear is just what your friend will need come January when her vacation time comes and she’s forced to make her way to beautiful beaches with horrifyingly hideous swimsuits in her suitcase. Go ahead and push your envy aside in the spirit of Christmas, forget the fact that she’ll be on a beach soon, and buy your friend a bikini she’ll love! This act would truly define the spirit if the holidays!

If you are an expat, what must-have presents do you want to add to this Christmas wish list? Tell us in a comment below!