The Two-Stamp Gift That Works for Everyone On Your List
When you have a big heart and a generous spirit, your list of “people to give gifts to this holiday season” can get really long and unwieldy. Partners and immediate family seem like a given for most people. But when you start adding extended family members, neighbors, hair stylists, and overlapping concentric rings ranging from close friends to friendly associates, your list can get really long. And really expensive. Especially if you have to ship gifts to most of those folks this year.
So let me tell you about my favorite gift to give people: Can coolers, aka Koozies. (For my drinkware scholars out there: Koozie is a name brand and registered trademark that’s often used to generically refer to all foam or neoprene can coolers, a la Kleenex.)
Why? They’re affordable, easy to find, useful, come in motifs to honor any personality or interest, and best of all: They can be shipped through the regular post in a greeting card envelope with just two forever stamps. (Your batch of homemade granola in a mason jar could never.)
Allow me to explain…
They’re useful and easy to store.
Having grown up in South Florida and spent my whole life in the South, Koozies are part of my personal brand. They’re my love language. I even have a Koozie tattoo on my wrist (mainly so I can retort with my favorite dad joke “I always have one on me!”). Why do I love Koozies so much? Let me count the ways: They keep your hands warm, your drink cold, offer an easy way to identify your drink when everyone’s sharing the same 12-pack, and they offer you a creative way to express yourself.
Even if your giftee isn’t a die-hard Koozie lover like myself, a compact fold-flat Koozie is never a burden. At worst, it will get chucked into a junk drawer to wait for a beach day. At best, your gift will turn your friends on to their new favorite thing. Outside of the States, Koozies aren’t very well known, but I’ve gifted friends all over the world with their first-ever Koozies and they’ve all come to appreciate how functional Koozies can be as a critical part of a well-stocked bar or kitchen.
They’re affordable and easy to find.
If you have a list of giftees in the hundreds? Guess what? You can buy a hundred koozies for less than a dollar each. As a mid-summer gift this year for a group of my common-interest friends, I ordered 50 koozies for around $50. When my husband and I got married years ago, we gave everyone Koozies as party favors, and bought 200+ for less than $80. (Totally Promotional is my go-to custom can cooler supplier.) You could order Koozies for all your friends with a souvenir-type joke on them (“Someone in Hoboken loves me!” / “I became friends with Michelle and all I got was this lousy Koozie”) and give one to everybody on your extended wish-I-could-gift-them list.
But the best Koozies are the absolutely perfect ones that you find just for that person…
They’re personal.
If you have a friend who’s a die-hard fan of a TV show or sports team or their home state or reproductive rights or a local bar or just really into their line of work? There’s a Koozie for that. You can search Google for “[interest] koozie” to find a bunch, but Etsy is also great for this. Any funny t-shirt you see can probably be turned into a Koozie by the custom vinyl crafters on Etsy—and the Koozie will be more appreciated and probably used more often than a novelty t-shirt. Novelty is what Koozies are for! The one-off Koozies will cost more than a dollar—usually $3 to $7 in my experience—but it’s still a great and affordable gift for the people on your list who you want to send something more personal to.
Especially when you consider that…
They can be shipped with two stamps.
Unless you’re buying big and tall ones designed for White Claws or 24-ounce cans, Koozies are a standard size. And that standard size happens to fit inside any greeting card envelope (even the small 4″ x 5.5″ ones). They make the envelope thicker, but Koozies are still squishable enough to fit through the post office’s sorting machines. Due to the small amount of added weight and thickness, you can get away with sending a koozie through the mail within the United States for $1.10, with just two 55¢ First-Class Mail Forever stamps on the envelope. (When I ship internationally, I go into the post office to mail them and the shipping is closer to $4 each.)
Try that with a batch of cookies, and you’ll see how Koozies really are the most affordable, shippable gift you could give someone this year.