We have a few holiday traditions here in Brokelandia: brewing a batch of our favorite cheap holiday cocktail, The Admiral’s Christmas Sweater; a round or two of Matzah Ball bingo; the customary viewing of the He-Man/She-Ra Christmas Special; and, of course, our annual affordable holiday gift guide! The Brokelyn elves are busy compiling our list, but we want to hear your suggestions for the best Brooklyn gifts for $25 and under. Check our guides from 2010 and 2009 for inspiration and then send your ideas to tips[at]brokelyn.com. Shout outs to our favorites. C’mon, if Skeletor can get into the holiday spirit, you can certainly get excited about it too!

Most import stores are unfortunately unimaginative or expensive—or both. But when we stumbled into Home and Abroad (487 Atlantic Ave.), our skepticism went out the door. Behold, a Bollywood-worthy collar-and-earring-combo for $25! Why didn’t we find this place earlier? Other treasures include: art deco-ey clear plastic necklaces ($25), metal and beaded pieces ($15-25), funky-but-not-weird earrings ($4-12), even bedazzled business card holders ($14). The store’s open noon to 5 p.m. today, so grab this chance to check-off the rest of your glitz-loving list.

The New York Aviators at Floyd Bennett Field

The future site of pro basketball in Brooklyn is still largely a gaping pit, and the Cyclones still have many long, cold months before first pitch. But if you still haven’t found the stocking-stuffer for the sports fan on your list, you don’t have to shell out triple digits to see the Rangers: Tickets for the fledgling New York Aviators minor league hockey team are just $12 each (or $17  for VIP). The team plays in the Federal league, the hockey equivalent to Class A baseball, and it recently received attention in the New York Times as an official rung on the ladder to the NHL.

Come December, we put the lemonades and ales away and let warm beverages carry us through the brutal winter: from powdered Swiss Miss to fancy European sipping style, the touch of warm chocolate to your lips can act like a buffer against the harsh winter winds. The holidays, however, demand something a little more festive than the tiny flecks of marshmallow mica buried in brown sand. Red Hook’s Baked gives you a stocking-stuffer-sized option to step up your game with this gift pack of flavored marshmallows. Choose from eight-packs of vanilla, chocolate or peppermint ($18 for three). The mallows are also good for s’mores and snacking right out of the pack.

Drinks and furniture: two essentials of daily living that do not get along. Even if your wood furnishings are limited to a curb-alert-sourced 10-year-old end table, the last thing you want after a rockin’ party is a constellation of water-rings added to your decor. Instead, save your surface (for now) with this psychedelic optical-illusory set of coasters from Loom (115 Seventh Ave.) in Park Slope. At $10.95, the set includes four rotating patterns that “create the illusion of expanding and contracting space.” Talk about a rockin’ party. Spin the colorful coasters with these babies, and you’re in for one wild ride.

Before the Helvetica Bold invasion of the 1960s (and even before Mad Men), New York’s subway system directed travelers with an eclectic array of handsome rollsigns. Now you can give a glimpse of NYC’s Metropolis past with Flying Junction‘s hand-lettered canvas subway scroll signs, available on Etsy. The larger Manhattan-themed signs run, ahem, almost $200; but you can net the smaller Brooklyn signs for just $19! Hang ‘em up, dim the lights, crank up some machinery noise and it’s like commuting to your own Madison Avenue advertising firm at the turn of the century. Via Becoming Brooklyn

At the risk of overdoing the whole bottles, mugs, glasses theme to this year’s gift guide, here’s another liquid-vessel item that has us pretty psyched: the Bottle Cap Tripod ($10), from BK-based Dynomighty Design. This tiny tripod, which doubles as a high-tech stopper for your potables, screws right onto any soda- or water-bottle top on one end and into your point & shoot on the other. What you get is an ultra portable, swiveling-yet-stable mount to save your shots on windy days in Red Hook or just from chronically over-caffeinated hands. The tripod’s still available online, or you can try one of the many BK stores that carries Dynomighty’s products.

Shopping for the locavore on your holiday list has been a pretty easy task recently, though one item had long been missing from BK’s offerings: hard booze. Brooklyn is home to coffee roasters, great breweries and a budding wine culture, but you used to have to leave the confines of the borough to find the stiff stuff. Until earlier this year, that is, when King’s County Distillery became the first licensed distillery to open in NYC since prohibition. Now, the distillery’s batches of moonshine are available at several liquor stores ($20 for a 200 ml bottle), while its first batches of bourbon can be purchased ($23 for 200ml) directly from the headquarters in East Williamsburg. (more…)

If Kris Waldherr runs out of ideas for her next book, here’s one she should write: an artist’s guide to career success. Waldherr has parlayed her considerable illustration talents into a suite of books, iphone apps, card decks, prints and even an art licensing business that she runs out of her bright storefront workspace in Ditmas Park.

Her award-winning 2008 book DOOMED QUEENS: Royal Women Who Met Bad Ends, From Cleopatra to Princess Di (Broadway Books, $16), is a brainy chick gift-closet staple, for teenage Tudors fans on up.

In time for the holidays, Waldherr has just come out with two accompanying card decks. (more…)

Take a collection of stories, essays, poetry and other stuff that funny-man Judd Apatow finds funny himself, and that’s reason enough to recommend this book to anyone who can read. Add in the fact that proceeds go to the literacy-teaching org 826 National, and it’s a no-brainer. Edited by Apatow, I Found This Funny includes stuff by Fitzgerald, Franzen, O’Brien (Conan), Alice Munro and others. Not all of it’s funny, Apatow says, but it makes him laugh anyway. The book’s $25 at Word in Greenpoint, at Greenlight in Fort Greene and probably a few other places too. And to learn more about 826 NYC, stop by their headquarters at the Brooklyn Super Hero Supply Co. in Park Slope.