Christmas Gift Ideas 2012

The Corkcicle was nominated by gifts.com for the 2011 Gift of the year, the winner of which will be announced on Cyber Monday. It can be difficult to keep your wines at just the right drinking temperature. Not any more. Just place a Corkcicle inside your wine bottle and let it chill the wine from the inside.

Store your Corkcicle in the freezer and when you open a bottle of white wine, instead of having to use an ice bucket or return the wine to the fridge just insert the Corkcicle which will then keep your wine at the optimum temperature.

If you have a Starbucks addict in your life, why not help them save some money with a home espesso and cappuccino machine. In my view this has got to be about the best coffee machine for under $100. You can make professional-quality espressos, cappuccinos, and lattes in the comfort of your own home with this 4-cup coffee maker. Not only does it look good but it has a powerful steam/boiler which quickly heats up in less than two minutes which will allow you to make up to four cappuccinos or lattes in less than five minutes. The machine also allows you to switch from brewing coffee to steaming milk and adjust the stregth of the coffee strength to suit your individual taste. It also has a seperate steam arm for ateaming and a removable drip tray for easy cleamning.

 The new generation of RC helicopters is here! Unlike previous models of helicopter, the Syma Metal Series  107 has a built in gyroscope that makes it far easier to maneuver than other models. The internal solid state gyroscope enables a whole new level of directional control, which means that the helicopter always maintains a fixed heading. Gone are the days of out-ofcontrol spinning you got in the older models! The world of indoor helicopters has really taken a leap forward in the past few years from 2-channel to 3-channel. This means that you now have control over the height, speed and direction, over 3 different axis of control.

Ok, not strictly a Christmas present as you'll need this sooner BUT I thought it worth mentioning as I bought lego advent calendars for my boys last year for the first time (how come I never knew they existed??) and they were a huge success. This year I've gone with the Star Wars one which looks absolutely brilliant. I can't wait to see their faces when they get these. It has 24 unique gifts, including iconic mini figures, vehicles and accessories from the Star Wars universe. A young Jedi is too cool to get plain old chocolate in their advent calendar, so try something a little different with this version. Open a new window on each of the 24 days before Christmas, and it could contain any one of nine well known mini figures or sixteen vehicles.

The Olay Professional Pro-X Advanced Cleansing System would be a welcome gift for most women. The manufacturer claims it cleans 6X deeper than normal cleansing and it works by massaging cleansing lotion into your skin with rotating brushes that spin up to 350 times per minute. If your budget is tight It is a good alternative to the much more expensive Clarisonic Pro (which I love). As it cleanses it also exfoliates which prepares your skin for the application of your moisturizer which is then quickly absorbed. You should also find that your foundation is easier to apply as it  won't have a tendency to slide across your skin and will consequently give you a much better finish. 

The Pro-X Advanced has two setting so that if you have sensitive skin you can use the more gentle one. It runs on batteries so is also very handy for travelling. It has had hundreds of rave reviews on Amazon with people claiming, amongst other things, that it helps with oily skin and acne. Remakably this product is priced at under $30.

If your girlfriend/mom does their own nails then how about giving them a professional nail dryer. This Thermal Spa dryer is big enough for two hands (or feet)and also works on shellac nail varnish. It has two and three minute settings and also a continuous setting. When using darker nail colours use two cycles to be sure it has cured.

Survival expert and Born Survivor host Bear Grylls portrays potentially life-threatening situations to demonstrate how to survive in a worst-case scenario.Filmed like a feature film, Bear pushes his physical boundaries. Part stuntman, part urban survivalist to exhibit scenarios that viewers could find themselves in and equip them with potentially life-saving information.In each episode, Bear shows viewers that the right knowledge and skills can help anyone succeed in urban survival situations that could arise without warning, from escaping a high-rise apartment fire to fending off a shark attack to escaping out of a sinking car. Further situations featured on “Worst Case Scenario”include escaping from a frozen lake and surviving a multi-story elevator plunge.