20 Unique and Alternative Gift Ideas

Does your gift recipient already have everything? Are you tired of impersonal gifts? Then send your friend or loved one on an adventure! Great American Days can give your gift recipient a once-in-a-lifetime experience sure to be remembered forever.

They'll put you or a loved one behind the wheel of a NASCAR race car or the controls of a fighter jet, send you skyward in a hot air balloon or hang glider, send you down the river on a white water rafting trip, or give you an adrenaline rush with many other adventure gifts.

For the more tame of heart, they also offer gourmet cooking classes, luxury massages and other pampering experiences, and there are adventures to fit every budget.

Experience gifts are an especially great way to mark major milestones, such as turning 40, graduating from college, or celebrating a 10th anniversary. Let's face it - going on a hot air balloon ride is just more FUN than opening a box. Your friend or loved one will remember this gift forever.

A personalized photo watch won't get the adrenaline racing like an adventure gift, but it will ensure that your gift recipient thinks of you often as he or she checks the time.

HourPower's watches are functional, stylish and very personal. Each watch comes with a secret compartment below the watch face that opens to reveal a photo and/or message. Add a personal engraved message up to 55 characters, or order the optional laser-engraved photo disc for a waterproof, permanent alternative to the traditional cut-and-place locket photo. They've got a wide selection of watches for men and women in a variety of styles, so you're sure to find something just right for anyone on your gift lift.

This is a great idea for anyone who enjoys art. There are several online companies that can turn a favorite digital photo into a handmade oil painting, black and white charcoal sketch, colored drawing, or a beautifully enlarged photo on canvas. You can find an artist to transform your photo into a drawing or paiting at sites such as Direct Portrait.com or myDaVinci. You simply send them a photo and their artists do the rest. They can even remove unwanted background objects from the photos before creating the painting.

For tranferring your photo to canvas, photo sites such as Shutterfly can help you create a gift your loved one will treasure.

If you know someone who has ever dreamed of sticking a message in a bottle, throwing it in the ocean, and waiting to see where it showed up, this is the gift for them - a personalized message in a bottle.

TimelessMessage can help you create a unique gift that is sure to be remembered for years to come. Simply choose from one of the many bottle colors, shapes and sizes, select a message or write your own, and then choose to ship it directly to your recipient or to yourself so you can deliver it in person. Then watch the reaction on your friend or loved one's face when he or she opens the bottle!

Need a unique gift for a cook? Then consider a Tastebook. A Tastebook is a cookbook that can be personalized with your favorite photos, recipes and a customized cover. Your Tastebook can include favorite recipes from the database of more than 25,000 Epicurious.com recipes, or you can add your own family recipes to create a cookbook where every recipe in it is one that the chef in the family will enjoy cooking.

If you need a romantic gift and are thinking about sending roses, don't settle for the regular kind! Get personalized embossed roses from Flowers Fast. These red roses are customized in gold letters with one of three messages you choose and delivered by FedEx overnight. It's a much better way to say, "I love you."

Turn over the box of many items you'll find on the local department store shelves and you might find the words "Made in China" or "Made in India." The cheap wages paid in these and many other developing countries around the world allow us to pay ultra-low prices for mass-produced items shipped from halfway around the world. "Fair trade" describes a movement to ensure that artisans and employees receive fair prices for their products.

You can shop for handmade, one-of-a-kind fair trade clothes, coffee, and gifts at stores such as Global Exchange, or search eBay, Amazon or the web for "fair trade" products. Your socially conscious gift recipients are sure to approve.

Planting a tree in someone's name is a great way to memorialize the birth of a child, the death of a loved one, or a special occasion in anyone's life. You're helping to improve our environment, removing carbon from the atmosphere, and creating a lasting memory of the occasion. Your tree may also help improve someone's life if you purchase through a nonprofit organization working to make the world a better place.

You can plant trees in someone's name through nonprofit organizations such as Heifer International or Trees for Life International. They will plant the trees in developing countries to help local villagers become more self-sufficient. Or if you prefer your dollars stay closer to home, you can choose a company like TreeGivers.com that will plant your tree in the U.S. or Canada.

If you've got a wine lover on your list, visit Personal Wine.coms to pick up a unique gift that's sure to be a hit - personalized wine.

You can choose a wide variety of quality wines by type (red, white, blush, champagne). Then personalize the bottle with your own message. You can even upload a photo to print on your personal wine label.

"You will discover great fame as a master gift giver." - Fortune Cookie

Ok, you'll probably never get Chinese take-out with that fortune inside your cookie, but you could win favor with your friends and family by giving a super-cool giant personalized fortune cookie. The cookies are dipped in your choice of white, dark or milk chocolate and sprinkled with candy confetti. When your gift recipient opens the cookie, they'll find your personalized message on a foot-long fortune with up to three lines of 30 characters each.

You can get these goodies and many other personalized gifts at Personal Creations.

The wonderful thing about naming a star is that you can do it for just about anyone.

Want a romantic present for your girlfriend? Name a star after her and tell her you love her as much as all the stars in the sky. Need something for your nephew who loves astrology? Name a star and give him the coordinates to find it himself. How about a gift for a new baby? Name a star and let the parents know their love for their child has been memorialized in the stars. It's easy to get creative with a star!

So hop over to the International Star Registry and check it out. Your recipient will get a certificate personalized with the star name, date and coordinates. And you'll get the good feeling of giving a gift that will last as long as there are stars in the sky.

Have you ever wanted to star in your own novel? Now you can. YourNovel.com and Romance by You are two sites that let you live your romantic fantasy.

YourNovel.com offers 24 titles, including "Another Day in Paradise," "High Seas Romance," "Rome: Diamonds, Danger and Desire" and others. You simply provide names and details to personalize your book and choose whether you'd like the wild or mild, version. You can also add your own photo to the cover.

For a more daring romantic adventure, visit Romance by You and select from one of several genres, including western, vampire, pirate and medieval tales.

These personalized romance books will make great reading for those cozy winter nights by the fire... or those steamy late-night rendezvous. It's a gift your honey is sure to remember!

Digital photos have made it easy for anyone to make fun, creative gifts. Sure, you've seen keychains and mugs with photos, but how about putting your favorite athlete's pic on a Wheaties box or a magazine cover?

PersonalizationMall can make your star athlete a Wheaties box hero, as well as offering several magazine cover options, or you can check out the magazine covers at
Personal Creations.

Almost everyone knows a chocoholic, someone who loves chocolate as much as an art collector loves Picasso. If you've got someone like that in your life, personalized chocolate may be the perfect gift. Check out the 1 lb. personalized chocolate bar at Personal Creations. You can choose from several occasions and add a one-line personalized message. (See photo of birthday chocolate for an example of one occasion.)

Ok, now you've got gift ideas for wine lovers, chocholate lovers and cooks. But how about your friend who loves a simple meal of meat and potatoes? If your gift recipient loves grilling steaks, then a personalized steak brand is sure to be a hit. For those who want to see their name go up in smoke, you can get personalized initials. Or if your recipient is a sports fan, treat him to a steak brand featuring his favorite team's logo. You can also find novelty branding irons featuring a variety of images. Just head over to SteakBrands.com to find your perfect gift.

If you're looking for a way to get away completely from a commercialized gift, consider buying a gift in someone else's name. Similar to planting a tree in someone's name, you can give the gift of a water buffalo, a fuel-efficient stove, educational books or more from nonprofit organizations such as Heifer International, Trees for Life, Alternative Gifts International or Mercy Corps.

These alternative gifts range from inexpensive ($5 for one book to a child through Trees for Life's Book for Life program) to pricey ($5000 for a gift ark of two cows, two sheep, two camels, and more animal pairs from Heifer International) and everything in between.

These gifts will help you and your gift recipient share the true meaning of the season.

Here's an educational gift your kids or grandkids (or someone else's kids!) are sure to love. Make them the proud new parents of a wild animal. Adopt a dolphin from the Oceanic Society, a tiger from the National Zoo, or many other wild animals. Just search for "adopt a [insert your favorite animal]" on Yahoo! or Google and you're sure to find the animal of your choice. Best of all, by adopting a wild animal from a nonprofit organization, you'll be supporting their educational and/or conservation programs.

You can add to the gift be getting a subscription to a magazine such as Zoobooks or National Geographic Kids or getting a related gift, such as a calendar, T-shirt, or figurine at a store like Animal Den.

If you've made it to the end of the page and still can't decide what to buy your friend or loved one, then maybe you shouldn't buy a gift at all. The reason you're giving this person a gift is because you care about him or her, right? So how about giving them a gift of yourself? Plan a day together. Go to the movies, have a picnic, or just hang out and listen to music.

You can package your "gift" by creating a gift certificate on your printer and putting it inside a gift card. Or go to Zazzle, upload a photo of the two of you together, and create a personalized card. Inside the card, you can describe your gift by writing, "This card/certificate entitles the bearer to [your gift idea]." That's it!

It's likely this will be the most personal - and memorable - gift your recipient will receive during the holidays.