Gift-giving season may seem daunting in light of inflation, tariffs and the changing economy, but it doesn’t have to be.

Several Pioneer Press reporters have compiled a list to ensure you get the most out of your holiday frills, without fearing next month’s bills.

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Whether you’re headed to Ax-man Surplus, an eclectic thrift shop on University Avenue, St. Vincent de Paul thrift store in the West Seventh neighborhood or MyThrift store in St. Paul’s North End, you’re sure to pick up items that can be elevated to gift status for a fraction of the price.

Roll up your sleeves, break out the glue stick and put the kettle on, folks. It’s time to craft.

Homemade cookie tins

Planning to make cookies for the holidays? With a few extra steps and dollars, your cookies can be elevated to a thoughtful, inexpensive gift for friends, co-workers or even your mail carrier.

Vintage cookie tins are easy to find at thrift stores this time of year and usually cost only a few dollars. With some soap and elbow grease, you can transform a neglected piece of history into a treasured carrying case full of sweets.

Add some colorful tissue paper, a ribbon and a handwritten note, and you’ve got yourself a sophisticated display for a fraction of the price.

DIY beverage kit

Instead of spending upwards of $50 for a pre-made beverage kit, you can craft one yourself if you know what to look for.

Do you want to make a cocktail kit? If so, scour the thrift stores for a pair of highball, martini or wine glasses, which are usually priced around $5 each. The glasses can be polar opposites, complement each other, or come from the same set – go with whatever you think your recipient will like the most.

Add in some spices, dehydrated orange slices and a modest bottle of liquor and your basket is done.

Do you want to make a hot cocoa kit? If so, head straight to the mug aisle and start poking around. Whether you’re looking for a colorful cup suitable for a child or a discounted Starbucks mug for the tween in your life, chances are you’ll find at least one option that fits the bill while only costing a few.

Add in some chocolates, marshmallows or fresh roasted coffee and you’re good to go.

Lastly, don’t forget to peruse the aisles for any accessories to add to your kit like a cocktail shaker, fancy stirring spoon, mug tree, drink markers or bottle stand.

Keepsake boxes

If you’re looking for a gift for that person who has everything, consider a keepsake box for them to put everything in.

This will require one or more special photos plus optional mementoes and crafty supplies such as glue, scrapbook paper and stickers.

The first step is to wander the thrift store aisles; you are looking for a simple wooden box that fits your project idea.

Back at home, gather favorite photos of the person (and perhaps of their family, friends and pets) and make photocopies of these pictures that you will glue to the box. For this collage on a box, you can also include meaningful items such as handwritten notes, newspaper clippings and more.

This keepsake box can also be as simple as one meaningful family photo, as shown here of Molly Guthrey’s late Aunt Carolyn and Uncle Tillman, with a photocopy of Carolyn’s handwritten caption, given as a Christmas keepsake box for their daughter.

Once the box is painted (or not) and items are cut and glued down, seal this delicate masterpiece lightly with Mod Podge (matte). Don’t worry if it’s not perfect, that’s part of the charm of a thrifty, papery keepsake box. It can be created for any occasion!

Book lovers gift

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Books are easy to find at the thrift, so if you’re thinking about gifting a book this year, consider thrifting one, or many.

You can easily create a themed book bundle, for example: art books, history, romance, etc. Throw them in a cute thrifted basket, wrap them in newspaper with a bow and you’re good to go.

If you want to go the extra mile, consider annotating a thrifted book, adding a homemade bookmark with a quote from their favorite author, or a collage you made with magazine and paper scraps or throw in some thrifted mugs and hot cocoa.

Personalized picture frames

Gifting a family member or a friend a framed photo might seem old hat, but it doesn’t need to be.

Picture frames are a dime a dozen at most thrift stores. Wooden frames, metal frames, ornate frames, gaudy frames — you can find it all and in a variety of sizes. For this project, focus on the no-frills picture frames so you have more space to add your own.

Once you’ve selected the photo and frame, it’s time to get creative. If you want to paint the frame, you can add a funky border, cute pattern, details of the photo like where and when it was taken, or you can paint the frame to match the photo.

If you’re not confident with a paintbrush, you can also use stamps, collage or hot glue relevant items to the frame. For example, if it’s a photo from the beach? Add seashells. A photo with the kids? Add crayons. A photo from a night out? Add concert tickets, wristbands or anything that will help preserve the memory.

With very little planning and a quick trip to your local thrift store, you could have the picture-perfect gift.

Perfume lovers gift

For the person who loves fragrance, but doesn’t need you buying them a new bottle because they already own 1,000, or they’re simply picky, here’s an idea.

Vintage stores have glass perfume bottles galore: beautiful glass dabbers and those funky mister-style ones (you know, with the ball of air that you squeeze on the end). Give these to a fragrance lover, and they can put any scent they’d like inside, or simply use them as a décor piece. Bonus if you throw small samples of fragrances they’ve never tried, or a discovery set from a brand they’ve had their eye on for a while.

Not sure where to start? Talia McWright recommends the Antique Mall of St. Paul, located at the intersection of Fairview and Selby avenues, and the nearby Missouri Mouse Antiques.

Handmade ornaments

Not a seamstress? Don’t worry. Fabric ornaments made from felt are easy to do and sewing isn’t required, so long as you have fabric glue.

Simply pick a design (heart, frog, anything your heart desires), cut out the shape twice, then glue or sew them together. Be sure to leave a gap to stuff the ornament with fabric scraps or poly-fil, then glue or sew a piece of ribbon, twine or string to the top so it can be hung on a tree.

Ornaments can also be made using clay (air-dry clay is really easy to work with), or beads and string. Get creative, and have fun! It’ll be a one-of-a-kind gift that people can keep for years to come.

Music lovers gift

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Thrift a vinyl or a CD of someone’s favorite artist or genre for those old-school folks in your life. You could throw in a music-themed book as well (bonus points if it’s thrifted) or maybe a magazine featuring said artist or genre.

If you’re crafty and have the time, consider making a music-themed zine for them. It could include their favorite artist and fun facts about them, or the history of their favorite genres and how they’ve changed over time or it could simply be a list of music they should listen to, which you can write on a CD, vinyl or mixtape-shaped piece of cardstock.

If you want to go the extra mile, make a mixtape or burn a CD for someone with songs that they’d love or songs that you’ve listened to together; just make sure they have a way to listen to it. And if they don’t? Scour the thrift! Pawn shops are an extra good place for cassette decks and CD players because a lot of their electronics are tested.

Mini simmer pot kit

Add dried oranges, cinnamon sticks and cranberries to a mason jar (all dry ingredients) for friends and family to use as simmer pot ingredients.

All items can be purchased in bulk and then dispersed amongst small mason jars or any thrifted glass vessel. Add a cut piece of fabric to the lid if you want to make it festive!

Kid’s corner

If you’re holiday shopping for a kiddo in your life, start your hunt at the thrift store.

Action figures, dolls, children’s books, puzzles, board games and tricycles, to name a few, can all be found lurking at your nearest Goodwill.

Odds are you won’t find the latest Lego set, but you’ll find just about everything else – and for a bargain.

By JESSICA DAMIANO, Associated Press

If I asked you to name a holiday flower, my guess is poinsettia, amaryllis or paperwhite would be the first to come to mind. But there’s another, underused seasonal plant that deserves attention.

Allow me to introduce you to cyclamen.

There are roughly two dozen species of the perennial plants, some with rounded leaves and others with heart-, kidney- or ivy-shaped foliage. Some boast white or silver marbling or speckles on their leaves.

But their flowers are the main attraction. Available in white and shades of pink, red and purple, the houseplants boast unusual, upside-down flowers with delicate, backward-curved petals –- and they bloom only in winter.

Place cyclamen plants in a spot that provides soft or indirect light, such as in front of an east- or north-facing window, or to the side of a brighter one. These plants do not like the heat; they thrive best at temperatures that hover around 60 degrees.

Cyclamens also like humidity, so consider growing them in a bathroom or placing pots on a rimmed pebble tray to which you’ve added water, but not so much that the pebbles float. As the water evaporates, it will create a humid microclimate around the plant.

Watering is a balancing act. Too much, and the plant’s roots will rot. Too little, and they’ll droop. Your best bet is to water cyclamen through the drainage hole at the bottom of its pot, placing it in a shallow bowl of water until the soil is lightly saturated, then removing the pot from the bowl and allowing it to drain before returning it to its home perch.

Take care not to splash the plant’s crown — the juncture between the bottom of the main stem and the roots — with water. It is highly susceptible to rot.

Provide a monthly dose of a balanced houseplant fertilizer diluted to half-strength when the plant is in its growing phase.

Stop watering and fertilizing as soon as the plant’s leaves turn yellow, which signals that it’s preparing for dormancy. Moving it to a cool, dark room will help the plant during this phase. Most, if not all, of the leaves will die and drop; you can trim off any that remain.

Brush off a bit of soil from the top of the plant’s tuberous root to expose it to air while it’s dormant. This will help prevent rotting.

Your cyclamen will look dead during summer, but will show signs of new life in the fall. When you spot new growth, cover up the top of the tuber with potting mix. Then move the plant back into bright, indirect light, and resume watering and fertilizing for another round of cheerful holiday blooms.

Jessica Damiano writes weekly gardening columns for the AP and publishes the award-winning Weekly Dirt Newsletter. You can sign up here for weekly gardening tips and advice.

For more AP gardening stories, go to https://apnews.com/hub/gardening.

By KIRSTEN GRIESHABER, Associated Press

DRESDEN, Germany (AP) — When pastry chef Tino Gierig is asked what the famous Dresden stollen tastes like, his eyes sparkle and his voice rises to an enthusiastic sing-song as as he describes the rich delicacy filled with raisins and other dried fruits.

“Stollen tastes like Christmas, like family, like tradition, like hominess, peace, serenity,” the 55-year-old said as he lovingly kneaded his buttery yeast dough before folding in golden raisins in his Dresdner Backhaus bakery.

Bakers in the eastern German city of Dresden have been making stollen for hundreds of years and it is now a treasured Christmas tradition. It is usually cut on the first weekend of Advent — the four-week period leading up to Christmas — and served with coffee and Christmas cookies.

After baking several loaves of stollen in his Dresden bakery in November, Gierig picked off some slightly burned raisins from the top, brushed the pastry with butter, sprinkled granulated sugar on top, and in a final touch dusted it with powdered sugar.

The 55-year-old is precise in his baking, and also particular about how to define his hand-baked Christmas specialty: “It’s a heavy yeast dough, it’s not bread, it’s not cake. It’s a pastry that is only made for the Advent season.”

In Germany the desert is often called Christstollen, and to Gierig it looks “like Christ Child wrapped in swaddling clothes.”

“This kind of baking has a lot to do with symbolism,” Gierig said.

A protected brand

While Gierig’s description sounds like an ode to Christmas baking and the creation of stollen in particular, stollen is also big business with an organization that is dedicated to protecting and promoting the brand.

The Dresden Stollen Protection Association awards a coveted golden quality seal as a certificate of authenticity to bakeries that fulfill certain conditions and which are located in or near Dresden. The products are checked every year to make sure they fulfill all the expectations of the association.

According to the strict rules, stollen must be made with heaps of butter – at least 50% of the flour content – as well as a generous load of golden raisins, candied orange and lemon peel as well as some sweet and bitter almonds. The addition of margarine, artificial preservatives or artificial flavors is not allowed.

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The Dresdner Christstollen is additionally protected by European Union rules that stipulate where and how it needs to be produced, just like Lübecker Marzipan from the northern German city of Lübeck, Schwarzwälder Schinken ham from the Black Forest, or Aachener Printen gingerbread from the western German city of Aachen.

Nonetheless, the bakeries, which have often been run by the same families for many generations, can add their own mix of spices and flavors. They usually include include vanilla and cardamom, and sometimes tonka beans, cinnamon, nutmeg or cloves.

“There are just so many flavors from all over the world in there that have blended together, making it simply a wonderful symbiosis,” Gierig said.

In 2024, more than 5 million loaves were sold, about 20% of which were exported. Austria and Switzerland are the main countries of export, but Gierig says he also sells many stollen online to customers in the United States.

When stored in a dry, dark and cool place, the specialty keeps for many weeks.

A tradition with roots in the Middle Ages

While today’s recipes are fancy in ingredients and elaborate in preparation, Dresden stollen’s medieval origins are humble.

Stollen was first mentioned in a document in 1474 on an invoice from the city’s Christian Bartolomai Hospital, according to the association.

However, at that time, it was not yet considered a Christmas delicacy, but a fasting pastry that consisted only of flour, yeast and water.

Butter was not allowed until Pope Innocent VIII in Rome granted a special request by Elector Ernest of Saxony to lift the butter ban in 1491. From then on, stollen bakers have been also allowed to use more substantial ingredients.

While some of the more exotic spices were hard to get during the Communist decades in East Germany, stollen was among the most coveted delicacies in the country. Even Germans living in post-war capitalist West Germany were always hoping to get an original Dresden stollen package for Christmas from their brethren in the East as none of the stollen made in the west came anywhere close to the original.

The U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources has launched an investigation into three environmental groups and is seeking evidence of “collusion” between the groups and the Biden administration to reintroduce a ban on mining within the same watershed as the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

On Monday, the committee sent letters to the Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice and the Wilderness Society requesting documents and communications between the groups and Biden’s U.S. Forest Service and Department of the Interior.

The letters were signed by Reps. Pete Stauber, R-Minnesota, the chairman of the Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources; Bruce Westerman, R-Arkansas, the chairman of the Committee on Natural Resources; and Paul Gosar, R-Arizona, chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations.

“The Committee is keen to discover the details of (the groups’) backroom roles in the cancellation of the Twin Metals leases and the Superior Withdrawal, particularly given tax-exempt environmental groups’ continued pressure to oppose mining in northern Minnesota and otherwise negatively influence America’s natural resource and energy priorities,” the letters said.

Kieran Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity, responded in a letter Thursday, which he shared with the Duluth News Tribune.

“Your ‘investigation’ is in actuality an abuse of power, inappropriately weaponizing government powers against law-abiding American citizens in a clumsy attempt to intimidate them,” Suckling wrote. “The center is not and cannot be intimidated.”

A spokesperson for Stauber did not respond to the News Tribune’s request for comment.

Earthjustice declined to comment for this story, and the Wilderness Society did not respond to the New Tribune’s request for comment.

The Republican congressmen said “at least one of” the groups held “off-the-book meetings” with Biden administration officials at the Interior Department ahead of its decisions to cancel two federal mineral leases for Twin Metals and ban mining for 20 years on 225,000 acres of Superior National Forest within the Rainy River Watershed, which is shared with the BWCAW, over concerns mining would pollute the wilderness area.

Earthjustice then represented groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity and Wilderness Society, intervening in a lawsuit to support the Biden administration’s actions, the congressmen wrote.

“At the very least, these meetings created a serious appearance of impropriety; more likely, these meetings violated ethical standards and evidence potentially improper relationships between (the Center for Biological Diversity) — and other similarly radical groups — and the Biden administration,” the letter to the Center said.

The Biden administration’s moves effectively killed Twin Metals’ plans to build an underground copper-nickel mine, processing plant and dry-stacked tailings storage facility on the edge of Birch Lake and upstream of the BWCAW.

But the Trump administration has said it will reverse the Biden administration’s actions to limit mining in the Superior National Forest and return Twin Metals leases.

Suckling wrote that the Center for Biological Diversity “had no meetings with any federal officials about the proposed Twin Metals mine while our lawsuits about the matter were active.

“I’m sure you know this already since your letter tellingly doesn’t refer to the existence of any such meeting,” Suckling wrote. “Nor, quite curiously, does it describe any specific center action as potentially violating any specific law or regulations.”

In an email to the News Tribune, Suckling said Twin Metals met with the officials “at least 18 times during its suit” and pointed to other connections, including high lobbying expenses by Twin Metals and the fact that during the first Trump administration, President Donald Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, Ivanka and Jared Kushner, rented a Washington home owned by Chilean billionaire Andronico Luksic, whose family controls Antofagasta, the Chilean global mining giant that owns a 100% interest in the Twin Metals project.

“So if the House wants to investigate actual suspicious influence, it should focus on Twin Metals,” Suckling said.

Twin Metals declined to comment.

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