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I’m by no means a professional, but I’ve been ice skating consistently since I was nine. This past year, with all the rink closures, has been the longest time I’ve been off-ice in, maybe, forever. Unlike others who took up running or indoor cycling during the lockdown, I only took some virtual ballet classes at home and swam laps in our building’s pool, so I am far from being in skating shape.

Unfortunately, there is really no substitution for the lateral movements and agility I get from exercising on a slippery surface: most gym equipment only trains forward motions and movements. As an adult, it’s hard to find indoor ice time that fits with a busy work schedule, and outdoor rinks are very sensitive to our unpredictable winters in the Northeast. Short of blanketing my entire apartment in synthetic ice tiles and skating inside my home — which would be a dream come true but would also wreck my expensive blades — the next best thing is to get a sliding board like the one from Brrrn to rebuild my skating muscles.

The Brrrn sliding board doesn’t look like much for a $300 piece of exercise equipment. It’s basically a shiny strip of board with adjustable wooden stops on both ends that prevent you from sliding off the slippery surface. You need to wear these booties over your sneakers so you can exercise safely on the board and spray the board with polishing spray to maintain the slick surface. Thanks to its compactness, I can easily slide the board from under the couch to in front of my television for a quick sliding session. This way, I’ll have no excuse but to get back into skating shape to enjoy my favorite sport again. — Gloria Sin, reviewer (mobile)

OK, so if we’re really going for a “money no object” gift idea, then I’d have to pick Sennheiser’s $1,600 HD 800 S headphones. Yes, that’s too much to ever consider spending on a pair of headphones, and it’s an even more extravagant purchase considering their open-back design would make them inappropriate for listening in all but the quietest of home environments.

But goddamnit, it’d just be nice to be able to sit back at my desk at home and know that I’m listening to music in the highest possible quality, without having to make any compromises for size or noise isolation. I’ll stick with the wireless noise-canceling headphones for commuting and true wireless headphones for exercising. But if we’re just talking about having a pair of headphones for home listening? It’s gotta be the HD 800 S for me, please. — Jon Porter, reporter

Tattoos

If my family and friends truly loved me, and I mean this in all seriousness, someone would gift me $5,000 for more tattoos. I’ve got somewhere around a dozen tattoos now, but the artists I go to are not cheap — and rightfully so. I’m not even sure if $5,000 is a good estimate for the designs I want, but it’s a start! If it’s any consolation for my loved ones, they’ll be remembered fondly for the rest of my life every time I look at the ink. That, and maybe our followers on TikTok would think I look cool. — Kaitlin Hatton, social media manager, e-commerce

I’m a bit of a wristwatch enthusiast. Not a snob by any stretch, but I do have that unexplainable love for timepieces you wear on your wrist. I use an Apple Watch, but nothing about it gets me going like an analog watch — whether it’s quartz, mechanical, solar, cheap, expensive, or whatever. I love and appreciate so many watches that offer anything unique or authentic in their story, design, engineering, and general enjoyment, and you’ll never catch me not wearing one.

While I have a sensible and modest collection of watches, ranging from a $9 Casio and sub-$200 Seiko to a $600 G-Shock, I’ve recently become a bit obsessed with a slightly pricier watch that can’t even be bought anymore. The Unimatic Modello Uno U1-HGMT Limited Edition for Hodinkee is a watch made by a small Italian company that features a GMT complication and a monochromatic sensibility that speaks to me. I have wanted a GMT watch for a while, pretending I’m some kind of jet-setting traveler, but the most notable ones out there are usually super-expensive options from the likes of Rolex, Tudor, Breitling, etc. Many of them are a bit too posh for me, even if I do love a Tudor Black Bay GMT. But the Unimatic struck me in a unique way.

It’s not every day you see a mechanical watch from a small independent brand that’s made in Italy, and you don’t always see a design quite like this. Maybe it’s my Italian-American heritage or my obsession with all things black and gray, but if this limited edition of 500 watches was not sold out, I’d be looking to splurge and spend the $1,395 in hopes of it being a forever companion — even if I had to be cliche and “gift” it to myself as a wedding present to go along with my real forever-companion. So I choose this as my favorite gift to get for the holidays, money no option. It fits my exact style, and I wouldn’t feel like I have to apologize for it like I would something crazy-expensive like an Audemars Piguet Royal Oak (which I also secretly fawn over). I’d even take a used one with a little wear-and-tear since the edition is sold out. A watch should have a story that makes you love it and also be able to share stories of its own. — Antonio G. Di Benedetto, commerce writer

2TB Seagate storage expansion Card for Xbox Series X|S

If my Secret Santa wants to be really generous, then I have an idea. I can’t justify spending $399 on a 2TB expansion drive for my Xbox Series X, especially after I already bought a 1TB card earlier this year…. and an Xbox mini-fridge.

New-gen games are taking up ridiculous amounts of space, and waiting for a title to download seems like an entirely unfair punishment for failing to set priorities for the games I keep around. Will adding more storage make me better at the one game I actually play or help me dig through a backlog of games that has only grown longer during the pandemic? I mean, maybe? How will I know if I don’t try?

Sure, I could delete any of the Game Pass games I’ll never actually play and free up some of the nearly 2TB of storage that’s already inside my monolithic console, but you could also mind your business. Unless, of course, you want to buy me an overpriced peripheral that I absolutely don’t need — then go ahead, get involved. (The 2TB drive will be available in December.) — Richard Lawler, senior news editor

Life during the pandemic has been surprisingly hectic, so much so that I’ve neglected one of my favorite outdoor activities — birdwatching. You’d think that driving to a park and watching the activity of these feathered dinosaur descendants would be just the thing for a brief respite from the cares of the week, but for some reason, I haven’t been able to push myself out to any of my formerly favorite haunts.

Perhaps part of the reason is that my binoculars are, well, pretty much shot. They weren’t very high-end to begin with, and the last time I looked through them, the lenses were so grainy and out of sync that they were less useful than just squinting at the bird I was trying to identify. So I’m in line for a new pair — but even the less expensive binoculars tend to be, well, not cheap.

Binoculars are very individual — you really have to try them out in order to decide which work for you — so I can’t really say which I’d like the most. I have some in mind in the mid-$200 range (such as the Athlon Optics Midas that were recommended by Wirecutter), but if money were no object, I’d be trying out the $2,750 Zeiss Victory SF binocs. Zeiss is famous for its optics, and having a pair of those hanging from my neck would be a real treat. — Barbara Krasnoff, reviews editor

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