Today we’re going to do something a little different than what you were probably expecting from a holiday gift guide. As a blog and news outlet that primarily covers Magic: the Gathering, our community is mired in consumerism on a near-constant basis. There’s the regular cadence of sealed product to purchase from your local big box stores. Then you have the fire hose of Secret Lair F.O.M.O. queues that not only drain your wallet but burn a dark hole into the fabric of your very being. Your local game store’s pristine glass case containing beautiful and shimmering versions of all of the cards you need for your Commander decks. And, of course, there’s the digital realm, where you can turn the monetary fruits of your labor into digital currencies that can be exchanged for the Magic Arena experience.
So why add to that? What does a “holiday gift guide” offer to our community when every single day of our lives is already spent engaging in the rampant consumerism that is slowly eroding our society as the billionaire elites trade real estate and corporate stock portfolios on the trading floors of Wall Street the way we trade singles out of our binders with our friends in the school cafeterias and hobby shops across the globe?
This year for my holiday gift guide (which I haven’t done in a long time) we’re going to take a different angle and talk about how instead of adding more verses to the never-ending song of giving up your money for more “stuff” you can combine your favorite hobbies with the gift of charity.
Dungeons & Dragons
I want to start with Dungeons & Dragons, even though this is primarily a Magic: the Gathering site, for a few reasons. Most importantly, D&D is simply a more affordable game, requiring far fewer resources both physical and financial to get started with. Also, just last year, Wizards of the Coast refreshed the fifth edition of the game, now known as the 2024 edition, and released a new starter set for the game, which are both great new entry points.
The Dungeons & Dragons After School Kit
One of the coolest things that Wizards does, that I don’t think a lot of people are familiar with, is provide support for after-school programs. You can learn more about the program and apply on Hasbro’s Education resources site, and they support programs from grades 3 through 12.
This is where your typical gift guide might say something like, “For the Dungeon Master in your life, there’s the new Adventurers in the Forgotten Realms source book!” Don’t get me wrong, it’s a cool book. I’ll have a review of it up here in the coming weeks. But this holiday season I want to suggest something different. Can you help give the gift of Dungeons & Dragons to the young people of your community?
Start with your local library (one of the greatest resources we have on our planet). Do they have an after-school D&D club already? If they do, then ask if you can volunteer your time, either as a DM or to help kids learn the game. If you have the money to spend, and the library is able to accept donations, consider giving them either monetary donations for supporting the club, or give them products to use. Yes, that new Heroes of the Forgotten realm book would be a great addition to your collection, but you could also unlock the magic of Faerun for an entire community of young people at a time that they so desperately need things to do other than stare at Tiktoks on their iPads.
From there you can also check with your local schools. The deal is the same. See if they have a D&D club. If they do, how can you help support it. If they don’t, how can you help them create one and make it a success?
Building one of these clubs from scratch can be a big challenge but Wizards is happy to help and provide resources to get things going. From there you can also get your local game shops and hobby shops involved as well. I can only imagine they’d be thrilled to donate game supplies (dice), books, and other materials to library and school D&D clubs. After all, the future of their business relies on having a future generation of consumers. So it’s really an investment in their own business (feel free to tell them that if they seem hesitant to make a donation).
Sure there’s a new season of Stranger Things coming out and Wizards released a pretty cool game to go with it. I won’t stop you from getting it and/or gifting it to people, but you don’t really need a guide to tell you that. But maybe consider picking up a copy and giving it to a local high school D&D club, especially if you happen to have some schools in your area that serve communities with a high number of families struggling financially. These are known as Title One schools and you can probably find them if you look.
I know, it’s easy to get an Amazon referral link for Heroes of the Borderlands, the new starter kit, link to the review I did on it a few weeks ago, and tell you how great it would be for your home collection or your regular tabletop gaming group. But this year, in this climate, for this website, I just can’t do it, and I won’t. We don’t need the referral money. You probably don’t need the referral money. But your local youth D&D clubs could definitely use the money, and it will pay dividends for the health and future of your local community.
Magic: the Gathering
And then there’s Magic. I don’t have to tell you there are Magic products you can buy. There’s a Final Fantasy holiday box. There’s Avatar stuff coming out in like three weeks. If you’re reading stuff at Hipsters of the Coast dot com and you need me to tell you how to buy Magic cards for other people then I don’t know what to tell you. Check out Star City Games or TCG Player. One of them will definitely have a more traditional gift buying guide.
Instead, let me give you two gifts right now, both of which are gifts you can give other people. The first gift is the gift of charity by giving away your cards. The second gift is the gift of de-cluttering your life, which is a gift to yourself and anyone you live with, again by giving away your cards.
Why would you give your cards away? Three reasons. First, you probably have too many of them, and a lot of them you’ll never use again. They’re from drafts, and pre-releases, and pro tour qualifiers, and they will never make it to any Commander deck or Cube. Second, they take up so much space. Not only physically in your home, but mentally in your mind. Free yourself from the tangible and emotional burden they create. Third, MagiKids exists, and will turn your dust-collecting cardboard into collections for after-school Magic programs.
Oh no! It’s another pitch for after-school programs!
Yeah, I got you, there’s also Magic the Gathering after-school programs!
Same deal applies. But in this case, MagiKids is facilitating the programs (with the support of Wizards of the Coast). This is a great organization and will again, help build your local communities.
So please, instead of just picking up the latest and greatest Wizards products and giving them to your friends and loved ones, give the gift of creating and/or supporting after-school youth Magic and D&D programs in your communities.
And while yes, the traditionally you would think that a holiday gift guide would just be stuffed full of Amazon referral links, that’s not what the holiday season is about for us here at Hipsters of the Coast. So please, get involved, put your money where it will make a huge impact, and give the gift of gaming to the next generation.
Rich Stein (He/Him)Â is a lifelong gamer who was fortunate enough to have the financial means to play Magic and D&D from the age of 10. But not every child has that opportunity, and until we live in a world where every single child has the opportunity to burn with rage when their older sibling casts Counterspell, or wallow in despair when their level 3 wizard gets mauled to death by an angry owlbear, Rich will continue to use his platform to make that dream a reality.