Gifts for your brother or sister, from game night to their first apartment

By GiftPicker ·

Shopping for a sibling is oddly hard. You know their taste better than almost anyone, and you also know they will tell you exactly what they think of whatever you pick.

The ideas below are sorted by the kind of sibling they are. A few are meant to be shared, so you can use them together.

For the sibling who turns every holiday into game night

This is the sibling who pulls out a game the minute dessert is over and still remembers who won last year.

Wavelength is a team party game for 2 to 12 players in which one person gives a clue on a spectrum, like hot to cold, and teammates turn a dial to find the hidden target. Rounds are short, and teams tend to argue over every clue. Hitster is a music game for mixed ages: you scan a song card with your phone, hear the track, and place it on your timeline by release year, with more than 300 songs spanning a century. For a head-to-head rivalry, KLASK is a Danish wooden tabletop game that plays like a mix of air hockey and foosball, with magnetic strikers and ten-minute matches.

For the one who just got their first place

A first apartment comes with plenty of empty shelves and very few nice things, so help them make it feel like home.

SodaStream's Art sparkling water maker has a retro look and a lever for setting the fizz, and its refillable cylinder and reusable bottle replace a fridge full of cans. Our Place's Titanium Always Pan Pro is a 10.5-inch frying pan with a coating-free nonstick surface, the kind of pan that makes cooking at home feel less like a chore. If their walls are still bare, Nanoleaf's Shapes Hexagons are modular LED light panels they can arrange however they like and control from an app, by voice, or by touch.

For the sibling who's always on the move

If they are the one sending photos from a different airport every month, give them something that makes the trip easier.

Cotopaxi's Allpa 35L Travel Pack is a carry-on backpack that opens like a suitcase, with zippered mesh compartments and shoulder straps that tuck away. For long flights and train rides, the Trtl travel pillow wraps around the neck like a soft fleece scarf, with an internal support that holds the head upright, and it weighs less than a phone. To keep track of it all, a scratch-off travel map lets them reveal each country they have visited on a 23-by-33-inch world map poster.

For the youngest in the family

Shopping for a younger sibling is a chance to be the cool one. The Camp Snap is a pocket digital camera with no screen and six film-style filters, so every photo stays a surprise until it is uploaded. For a teen who wants a story to tell at school, an iFLY gift card pays for indoor skydiving, where first-time flyers get training from a certified instructor and then fly twice with one-on-one coaching. And the Nintendo Switch Lite is a compact handheld console made for playing Switch games anywhere, which makes the next long family drive go a lot faster.

For the one who remembers everything you did as kids

Some siblings can recall every family road trip in detail, including the parts you would rather forget. A gift built from your shared history plays right into that.

The RetroViewer with a custom photo reel pairs a classic stereo viewer with a reel of seven of your own photos, made by a company founded by a former View-Master employee. Shutterfly's custom photo playing cards put a family picture on the back of every card, ready for the next card game at the holidays. For the full archive, Artifact Uprising's hardcover photo book is fabric-bound and holds up to 200 pictures, enough for every bad haircut and school portrait.

A free idea for this sibling: dig out an old family photo, recreate it together with the same poses and as close to the same outfits as you can manage, and frame the two pictures side by side.

For the sibling you don't see enough

If you live in different cities or keep different schedules, a plan to see each other can be the gift. Concert tickets to see their favorite artist put a date on the calendar, and Bandsintown makes it easy to find a show near them and buy from the official seller. A Hipcamp gift card pays for a campsite, cabin, or treehouse on private land near parks, lakes, and beaches, so you can plan a weekend away together. For an afternoon closer to home, a Topgolf gift card covers play, food, and drinks at Topgolf venues across the US; check that there is one near them first.

If the budget is tight, a sibling day costs very little. Pick a morning, plan the whole thing yourself, from breakfast at the diner you went to as kids to a long walk somewhere new, and send them the itinerary as the gift.

Shopping for a sibling with very specific taste? Tell the quiz what they're into and your budget, and it will rank gifts from our catalog for them. Take the GiftPicker quiz.

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