From Digital to Decadent, the Luxury Gift List Has a Whole New Look

There was a time when a bike or a dollhouse made the grade for holiday gifting. Somewhat sadly, we outgrow that phase and other gift ideas enter the frame. Fancy, expensive gifts. Stuff so steep and indulgent that even the best minds in buy now, pay later can’t calculate an installment.

It begins innocently enough — say, a TV commercial showing a luxury SUV with a big red bow on it with an ecstatic spouse to match, everyone in cashmere sweaters — and before you know it, the “bike” we want is a Harley-Davidson Cosmic Starship model costing a cool $1 million.

You say “greed.” We say “need.” Classic tomato-tomahto.

This being Thanksgiving weekend, and with Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales swirling all around (incidentally, it’s graduated to “Cyber Week” now), we’re daydreaming about what we want to see under the tree, as it were, no matter how outlandish. And we know where to look.

Since 1926, shoppers have turned to the Neiman Marcus “Christmas Book” of high-end gifts for inspiration, and this year is no different. Strike that: This year is completely different in the annals of holiday gifting, but Neiman’s Christmas Book is still a great start.

We’ve already got our eye on a few items that may overheat the digital wallet, but are totally worth it for how nice recipients will behave — for about a week after.

Flipping straight to Fantasy Gifts, we’re asking Santa for The Ultimate Renewable Luxury Experience With Neiman Marcus & FASHIONPHILE. It’s a top-down wardrobe makeover in which “Neiman Marcus and FASHIONPHILE experts assist in identifying items in [your] closet to sell to FASHIONPHILE before embarking on a $100,000 shopping spree at [your] preferred store with Neiman Marcus Fashion and Lifestyle Director Lisa Aiken to fill [your] newly cleaned-out closet.”

There’s also The Roaring Twenties Party By Bronson Van Wyck — “an exclusive throwback soirée at the Apollo Theater, the legendary Harlem landmark, designed by party planner extraordinaire Bronson van Wyck. Start the night by seeing your name in lights on the marquee, and then enjoy amazing music, cocktails and dining experiences, all on the Apollo stage, to celebrate the joy and magic of being together.”

It’s a steal at $395,000, but that’s our opinion. And hopefully yours. We want one. No, two.

Stockings Stuffed With NFTs

What about more payments-themed holiday gifts? We’ve got you covered.

Imagine our joy upon discovering that this year, Macy’s is auctioning off non-fungible tokens (NFTs) of famous Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade floats. Seeing as how there was no Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 2020, these NFTs have a value beyond stored value.

As The Wall Street Journal reported, “The retailer is auctioning off 10 digital images of its Thanksgiving Day parade balloons, including a floating firefighter from the 1940s and a gold Macy’s star from the 1970s,” adding that “Macy’s said it will also be giving away 9,500 NFTs for people who go onto its website Thanksgiving morning.”

Thanks to Macy’s partnering with the NFT platform Sweet, anyone who sells the balloon NFTs in the future will automatically donate 10% of the proceeds to the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

And what about the novelty (and potential profit) of gifting crypto itself this year?

Lifestyle site Life Hacker looked into it, and we like their reasoning.

“Considering that it’s one of the few things unaffected by supply-chain issues, you might be want to consider gifting friends and family cryptocurrency for the holidays this year,” Life Hacker said. “Of course, cryptocurrencies are risky investments due to their volatility, so you’d have to be comfortable with crypto as a ‘fun’ gift that could ultimately prove to be worthless.”

The good news: “When you can give crypto as a gift, it won’t trigger income taxes. However, when the recipient transfers or sells it, taxes would then apply. And unless you’re insanely rich, you probably don’t have to worry about a gift tax either, as only gifts that total more than $15,000 require you to file a gift tax return.”

We’re just now realizing that most (if not all) of our fantasy gifts may carry tax implications, since we went for the most outrageously priced items and experiences we could find.

Thank goodness Etsy has an entire selection of “tax accountant gifts.”

What says “get me out trouble with the IRS” better: a Simpsons-stye caricature ($30) or a framed copy of the first IRS 1040 Tax Form, published in 1913 ($94)? “Makes great wall art for a tax adviser, accountant or bookkeeper,” Etsy says.

To lessen any tax complications, our final gift idea isn’t too over the top. It comes by way of Esquire, which recommends the year-long MasterClass All-Access Pass, where you “can learn it all — from Annie Leibovitz, Gordon Ramsay and Neil Gaiman, respectively — and anything else [your] heart desires. Knowledge is power, after all.” That gift subscription is just $180.

If you don’t want to spring for the $180, just send an e-card with a link to PYMNTS TV Masterclass. We may not have Gordon Ramsay, but what does he know about B2B data integration anyway? As free gifts go, you could do worse.