Awesome Christmas Gifts: For Him

Time is ticking! Only two weeks until Christmas and Santa waits for no man. So, to help you out here are some suggestions for the fella(s) in your life.

Keeping Cosy: Ugly Christmas Sweaters

Just in case Christmas Day turns out to be a little on the chilly side, here is a selection of ugly Christmas sweaters for you to choose from. But wait, they're not just ugly jumpers, they're actually heavy metal band merchendise! Oh, so that totally makes it okay. You can get Motorhead and Slayer jumpers from Backstreet Merch, and Queens of the Stone Age via Rekords Rekords.

Beer Snob: Your Very Own MicroBrew

Apparently beer making is as easy as cake making, especially with a BrewSmith home brew kit. A Melbourne-based company founded by Adrian MacGeraghty, BrewSmith aims to bring premium beer making into the home at an affordable price. The kit is reusable, with a number of 'refill' flavours available, including Summer Citrus Blonde, Chocolate Paradise Porter, and Aussie Wattle Pale Ale. They also have a Simple Cider.

They say that without the preservatives or filtering agents of commercial beers, home brewed beer leads to a lesser hangover. That alone makes the $70 reusable starter kit worthwhile, and the $20 refill kits an absolute bargain. The only drawback is the delay, as each batch takes around three weeks to ferment, so some planning ahead may be required.

Keeping with Tradition: It's What's Underneath that Counts

Those good old staples of socks and undies now come in a vast array of funky and colourful varieties - perfect for any man in your life, including Grandpa! Nothing says hipster Christmas quite like an amazing pair of paisley, sprinkled or patterned socks from Swedish company Happy Socks. And what about a pair of Sponge Bob, Star Wars or fruit inspired underpants from Pull In. Grandpa, uncle Bruce and your boyfriend will all love you for it.

I Like to Play: Get Steamed

Steam is a platform and community that digitally distributes games (for PC, Linux and Mac), from smaller independent titles to those from larger and better known developers. All the cool kids are on Steam, which has over 2,000 available titles and a community of some 40 million potential competitors or compadres.

While there are loads of free games, paid games include Call of Duty: Ghosts, Batman: Arkham Origins, Final Fantasy VIII and Football Manager 2014. And for under $20 you can get award winning indies like Super Meat Boy and Gone Home. There are bundles available for a range of prices, so there's pretty much something for everyone on Steam.

For the Young: Or the Young at Heart

I could have made some serious grown up DVD recommendations, like Danish cop show The Killing, the boxed set of Edgar Wright's Cornetto Trilogy, or Luther starring Idris Elba. Instead, My Little Pony, Adventure Time and Phineas and Ferb make the list this festive season. Why? Because each is mostly harmless and utterly enjoyable!

I asked Aussie comic writer, Ryan K Lindsay, author of My Little Pony Micro Series: Rainbow Dash #2 (available on Comixology) why he thought MLP would make an awesome gift this Christmas, 'What's not to love about ponies who think friendship is magic? Sweet characters, plenty of horseplay [see what he did there] and when I write 'em stolen Batman lines, Blade Runner speeches pony-fied and room for a David Bowie reference'.

The intertextuality (that's a wanky word for references to other pop culture etc) alone makes all three worth watching. Adventure Time will leave you wondering what the heck you just watched, Phineas and Ferb will make you feel smarter than everyone else in the room, while MLP will leave you with a warm fuzzy feeling, yup, even for the fellas (see bronies). And the best part - you can legitimately watch each of them along side the younger nieces, nephews, cousins, brothers, sisters, and grandma.

Did you miss our gift guide for her? Find it here.