University of Wisconsin Marketing unveiled its 2023 Holiday Gift Guide this week, suggesting 22 festive UW-themed gift ideas for the upcoming holiday season.
The guide features a wide variety of gifts from a poster of fish that swim in the Great Lakes to discounts on classes with the Wisconsin School of Business’ Center of Professional and Executive Development for UW employees.
In true Wisconsin fashion, though, Babcock Dairy takes up the most spots on the guide, featuring new items to celebrate UW’s 175th Anniversary with the limited edition 175th Cranniverscherry Cheese, a brick cheese with Wisconsin cherries and cranberries, and the 175 S’more Years Ice Cream. To pair with the cheese, the guide suggests a virtual French wine tasting with European travel expert Rick Steves, where six mini bottles of French wine are shipped directly to your home to enjoy as Steves shares his favorite travel and wine-tasting tips.
The holiday gift guide is an annual UW tradition that goes back more than a decade, according to an email statement from UW Director of Media Relations and Strategic Communications Kelly Tyrrell. It offers students, faculty and staff a variety of gift options that are either created or crafted by members of the campus community or that directly support campus departments, she said.
Cecilia Amnuel is a student at the University of Wisconsin. The gift-giving season is stressful for her due to her perfectionist nature, she said. She wants to make sure to give people exactly the right thing. Since she’s been in college, she hasn’t been giving as many gifts because of her limited budget as a student, opting instead for a nice and thought-out handwritten card, she said. Luckily for her, with students in mind, the guide features gifts at varying prices.
“Gifts span a range of costs at price points that are accessible to a variety of people in our UW community,” Tyrrell said.
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Amnuel is from Minnesota, and her dad is a graduate of the University of Minnesota. Because of this, she would not necessarily give a Badger gift as a majority of her friends and family are not too fond of Bucky, she said. The guide works around this hurdle by highlighting a lot of non-Wisconsin branded gear for the not Badger-friendly families.
“I like the idea of somebody really excited about what I get them and showing that I really know them by what I get them,” Amnuel said.
