By Charlotte Schnitger and Maria van Wijnen
Experiences as gifts
Sometimes, it is more fun to give someone an experience and a memory rather than a physical present.
Animal-related: The Netherlands is full of farms, many allowing animals to be petted. The Amsterdamse Bos is an option close to Science Park. Also, Texel: a northern Dutch island, about a two-hour trip from Amsterdam, has an amazing seal sanctuary. The Artis Zoo in Amsterdam is a lot of fun. Avifuana, though further, is another zoo – this one specifically focuses on birds.
Price range: 10-50 euros
Adventurous: The Amsterdamse Bos offers a fun and exciting ropes course. For fans of winter sports, SnowWorld Amsterdam offers a small ski slope year-round for people to improve their skiing and snowboarding skills.
Price range: 20-60 euros
Cultural: Amsterdam is full of fun museums with decent prices for students. While the Rijksmuseum is widely known, there are some hidden treasures worth exploring, such as the NXT Museum (dedicated to digital art), STRAAT (showcasing urban art), and Kattenkabinet (a museum all about cats!). There are also plenty of museums outside of Amsterdam, including the Louwman Museum in the Hague and the Railway Museum in Utrecht.
Price range: 15-40 euros
Day Trips: Leave the AUC bubble and explore Leiden, the Hague, Haarlem, Utrecht, Rotterdam, Gouda, or Delft with a friend or family member. Antwerp and Brussels are also possible to visit as a longer day trip or a weekend getaway. This idea is a great option for someone who lives outside of the Netherlands and wants to spend some quality time sightseeing.
Price range– 20-100 euros depending on the location
Relaxing: Get a gift card for a spa or pay for the person to get a massage, manicure, pedicure, and more. Groupon always has amazing deals for spa services.
Price range: 20-100 euros
Gifts for specific people
When you know what they like but not what they might need
For the family member that…
Is very sentimental: Get them a photo album or frame. It is very easy to personalize a photo frame using stickers, paint, and other supplies. Put your favorite picture with the family member inside the frame and they’ll love it. A photo album is also very sentimental, especially for an older relative who may prefer physical ways of storing memories.
Price range: 5-20 euros
Loves flowers and gardening: Get them flowers or plants that will last. Though flowers are a very common gift, you can spice things up by getting them a mini lemon tree or a small Christmas tree. Before buying anything, make sure the plants are safe for any animals the family member may have! If the family member loves gardening, you can make them a little kit with seeds and gardening supplies.
Price range: 20-60 euros
Lives abroad: Get them something Dutch! You can prepare a personalized gift box of all things Dutch you think they’d appreciate. Think of typical snacks like pepernoten, Dutch cheese, and stroopwafels, or consider a souvenir like a ceramic canal house or windmill.
Price range: 5-30 euros
For the friend that…
Takes pictures constantly: Get them a digital camera. Maarktplaats has tons of second-hand digital cameras that are of great quality for amazing prices. Markets like Waterlooplein and Ijhallen also offer many digital cameras. Just make sure they work before spending money!
Price range:10-150 euros depending on quality
Loves to go out: No more spending 15 euros buying cocktails at a bar – get your friends a cocktail kit so they can host cocktail nights before going out clubbing. An added plus of them improving their bartending skills is that you also get to try them!
Price range: 20-40 euros
Is obsessed with Matcha: If your friend does not have the supplies to make matcha at home, get them a little kit! Pre-made kits are easy to find on Amazon, Holland Barrett, and other stores. Making matcha at home tastes much better and is way cheaper than going to a cafe. It’s also way easier than most people expect.
Price range: 15-60 euros
Is addicted to coffee: No more going to a cafe and spending seven euros on a specialized coffee – make it at home! Get your friend flavored syrups so they can experiment with new coffee flavors. We especially recommend holiday flavors like pumpkin spice, white chocolate peppermint, and amaretto. You can also get them specialized coffee if they are a coffee expert and have a pallet refined enough to taste the difference between different coffee beans or pods.
Price range: 4-30 euros
Loves decorating their room: Make them a poster or a painting! If you enjoy arts and crafts, making a painting, collage or a drawing that they can hang in their room is cheap and very meaningful. If you’re not as artistically inclined, using Canva to make a poster and then printing that poster at a local print shop is very easy. Your friend is bound to hang it up as soon as possible.
Price range: 5-20 euros
Shopping guide
Now that the creative juices are flowing and you have hopefully gained some ideas for your gifts this season, we are here to help you make them a reality. Smooth shopping is guaranteed with this guide of crafty supply stores, unique webshops, and more.
Supplies for your DIY gifts: If you know where to look, all your supplies for the homemade gifts you plan to make can be bought cheaply and with good quality. For example, try a thrift store or second-hand market to find a simple mug to personalize for your best friend or a frame for that beautiful painting you’re making for your grandmother. There are many second-hand stores in Amsterdam, but if you wish to stay close to Science Park, we recommend ‘t Hartje, a small store with a great range of products, often even giving away certain things for free. Make sure to keep in mind that Amsterdam has two types of second-hand stores: vintage stores and kringloops. If you’re looking for low prices, hit up the latter rather than a curated and expensive vintage store. De Buurtkringloop and thrift store De Locatie are within a ten-minute bike ride. If you don’t want to face Amsterdam’s December weather and would rather stay inside, we recommend looking at Vinted to give a new life to second-hand pieces and help both your wallet and the environment while you’re at it.
Other cheap places to get supplies for your crafts are Action, the store that has it all, Pipoos, a high-quality hobby store for anyone who loves crafts, and Hema, which has all your supplies and ready-to-gift presents in every category. Besides that, Hema has a photo service that allows you to easily order photos online and pick them up at the nearest store within less than two hours. Perfect for some sentimental personalized presents!
Anything, for anyone: For your Secret Santa, White Elephant, or that one family member you just do not know what to get, we prepared an overview of stores that you won’t walk out empty-handed from. As a nice bonus, you’ll find yourself strolling some of Amsterdam’s nicest streets with festive lighting to really get into the holiday spirit while shopping. Firstly, IT’S A PRESENT in the 9 Straatjes has many small, funny gifts in every niche, from a Cookie Monster Christmas ornament to a mini karaoke microphone. A short walk down the street, you’ll find SocksWeLove, another store where you won’t miss, because who doesn’t love to get a good pair of socks with a cute pattern or funny quote? Make sure to visit other shops in the street like Things I Like Things I Love and Concrete Matter as well, because many of these smaller boutiques will surprise you once you step through their concealing door frames. All in all our main tip would be to hop on your bike or a train to the center, grab a coffee or hot chocolate, and get lost in the pretty streets of the city. We guarantee you, you’ll come across some stores you’ve never seen before and walk out with original gifts or plenty of inspiration to create them yourself.
To avoid the rain: Stay in and get all your gifts from behind your laptop! With the incredible amount of online stores there are today, you might get overwhelmed with where to find the gift you’ve been looking for. Luckily, we’re here to help.
If the weather in Amsterdam or the overwhelming finals season demotivates you to engage in gift hunting in the city, there are many unique webshops specialized in curating the perfect gift. Pynappel sells festive mailbox gift boxes that would be great for a long-distance friend or family member you want to surprise this holiday season. For the most original gadgets you wish you invented yourself, visit DitVerzinJeNiet, a Dutch website with a huge range of items that make it possible to score a gift for anyone. For anything that might be out of budget to buy brand new, browse Marktplaats, a second-hand marketplace, to find what you need. As Marktplaats is a Dutch platform, you won’t need to worry about the high shipping costs accompanying your purchases. More so, you can add your location and search for sellers within a certain kilometer radius, allowing you to even pick up items yourself.
PS: Many of the stores mentioned in previous paragraphs also have websites with home delivery services, so if you’re looking for something specific from those stores but are too busy studying for finals, that might be a great option.
The Herring 