Well, It is almost time to wind down the Holiday Gift Guide believe it or not! I never thought I would finish or catch up, but if I stay on track it should be done in time for Christmas week! I actually wrote a lot faster than I thought I would- more at a time and had the writing bug more so no complaints there- I know some fellow bloggers with literally 50 reviews left to write and I am glad that is not me!
This means I am getting down to those last few reviews-but there is nothing “last” about them because they are pretty awesome! Also, I do have a couple things to tie into new years with as well. I am hoping to get more things for that time frame, that way I don’t have the winter blues set in, and then the site suffers and it is just a big black hole until springtime!
One of the last things that I am bringing you as part of this years guide are some awesome goodies that I Just got last week that I knew would be awesome, unique and be an easy inclusion here in the last few days of the gift guide! Of course one of my top things for reviews are things that have the “unique” factor somehow another so when I got an email to review some items from the New York Times Store I was really excited and it took me some careful consideration to pick my items!
The New York Times Store has lots of goodies to choose from, including personalized gifts– which is what category the two items I received were from- This kind of plays up on that unique factor that I love and adore so much- what screams extra special unique than something with your name or something personal to you like a date on it right?
The first item that I picked was the Personalized Beer Tub! Now- this does tie into my little love for alcohol and all of that kind of thing- but I doubt I would ever have enough beer at one time to put in this tub unless David and I somehow ended up having his dad, brother and brad over to drink- which NEVER happens anymore! Then again it breaks down to holding 24 bottles of beer with its 5 gallon size so that might not be as big of an stretch to fill up as I think it is :)- and of course you could put soda or water in it too 🙂 Oh and my mom is already like hmm.. I like that and I am like mom it has my married name on it- not my maiden lol.
I got the design with the snowflakes. I would have posted a picture of my actual tub but I didn’t feel comfortable with the degree of personalization (last name)
You can pick from 3 designs typically for your tub, but right now there are a few extra holiday related ones that you can pick from as well. It is also customized with your last name, your established date, and city and town! I had a bit of fun with the city and town because where David and I were married it isn’t really a city/town and I didn’t want to put any ole random place we had lived so I just did the county we were married in 🙂
I really like the practical uses of this tub that exceed what it was originally intended for! You can use it for storage, to tote around your laundry or pretty well anything else you can think of since it is constructed out of galvanized steel and it has durable handles on each side as well so you can pretty well tote it here and there and use it for whatever you would want to use it for!
Next up, I got the Personalized Your Special Day: Holiday Edition book. This book commemorates any special date such as a birthday, anniversary, etc and basically gives you a reprint of the NY times from that day. I had mine done as my and David’s wedding day, which was a Sunday and you probably already know that sunday editions of the NY times are quite huge!
again I had my last name added on this so I opted to not post an actual picture of it here!
If the edition is a rather small edition for the day that you pick is rather small they will fill it in with some famous headlines over time- which was also true of my book even though it was a sunday edition- basically the general concept is that it is the main stories and highlights for the day and all of that.
I was shocked at the size of the actual book! I don’t do good when I read descriptions of sizes- honestly most of the time I just have something in my head and I don’t really even pay any attention to them, but when I went back and looked this one didn’t have any dimensions that I could find- anyways it is more of a presentation kind of piece- a really more bigger “coffee table” book if you know what I mean!
This edition of the book comes in a very stunning red color and you can have it personalized with the name and date of course in gold lettering! The book is leatherette and it really does make a nice display piece and conversation starter. When I first told David i was getting it, he looked at me like SO .. lol you know the look.. like why would we want that for? Well when he came home and saw it he had to sit and look at it for a while before he would even go eat dinner and then he told me it was pretty neat so ..coming from him that is a major compliment- because sometimes when I need him to help me with things I get to review he gives me approximately the same feedback.
Another thing to note is that the book comes with a magnifying glass to help you see the print if you have bad eyes like myself and it also comes with a certificate of authenticity as well!
There are a couple of date restrictions for various reasons such as newspaper strikes (really interesting – there have been 3 and one of them lasted for 88 days!) problems with microfilm and early on when they didn’t do the paper for holidays early on. I found all of it very interesting to learn about historical things like this- I don’t know if you know but I had a choice to minor in psychology, history or english and I picked english- sheesh lol.
I am very satisfied for my 2 awesome items that I got from the New York Times Store, and I love having them around so when someone is around they are like oh what is this, this is neat and all of that kind of thing. I know that my beer tub alone in a picture caused great conversation on facebook. The book got mixed in with some other pics I uploaded from the new camera so I am going to put it up again 🙂 I look forward to having these around in the years to come 🙂
