Work + Life Balance

The Ultimate Gift Guide for Yourself

The holidays are here! In between all the shopping, baking, and cooking you will be doing for your loved ones, make sure you're treating yourself too.

By Career Contessa Team
December 03, 2020

This Holiday Season, show the most special woman in your life that you really care.

She’s the one who sees you through thick and thin. She’s the one who loves you no matter what. She’s the one who knows all of your secrets and is never too busy to talk.

She’s your best friend and, sometimes, your worst enemy. She’s you. Yes, you made it through another year, and it’s been a doozy. This holiday, indulge in some retail-based, holiday self-care—with presents. And don't worry, some of them are 100 percent FREE.

We put together this super special gift guide for you, from you, because you know you’re going to buy yourself some treats anyway. Make it count.

Before you dive in, make sure to check out all of our gift guides:

*If you buy something through our links, Career Contessa may earn an affiliate commission.

Gifts to Help you Relax + Recharge

This year has felt like several decades, so we're going to relax like we just made it through an entire century. We've got the supplies to help you relax, recharge, kick up your feet, and queue up several seasons of Real Housewives of New York.

How to Bring the Spa Experience Home

Your favorite spa is closed for the foreseeable future, but you can build your own spa experience—right next to your home office (ie. in your bathroom, in your apartment!)

Here are our suggestions to BYOS (Build Your Own Spa.)

A comfy robe
Equally comfy slippers
An aromatherapy diffuser (with all the oils you'll need)
A silk eye mask
Bath bombs—lots of bath bombs
Face masks (this set has everything—from pearl to snail!)
A heated back massager (let this live on your office chair for a 9-5 massage)
A foot massager (which also has a heating element!)
An at-home Manicure + pedicure kit

Get (and Stay) in Those Sweats

2020 is definitely the year of the sweatpant—and not your oversized, grease-stained Gildan variety, either. Treat yourself to some gorgeous, cozy sweatsuits rebranded for 2020 as "leisurewear".

This hoodie (made from recycled materials!) from Girlfriend Collective
This American Eagle fleece hoodie. It's fuzzy.
2020 wouldn't be complete without you owning a tie-dye set, would it? WOULD IT?
Remind yourself how phenomenal you are

Gifts to Delight Yourself (Because, Why Not?)

These are the items you may have wanted, but you didn't get—yet. Treat yourself. These are some of the CC Team's "Self-Gift" Picks.

Aliya's Picks

Aliya leaned into some cozy-making quarantine purchases to treat herself. Here are a few

This fun vase, "because why not?"
This MotherDirt Spray "This spray is amazing for my fellow #EczemaQueens"
This food allergy-friendly cookbook, No Crumbs Left
An Imperfect Foods subscription

Caileen's Picks

Caileen got absolutely taken by Instagram ads this year. Here are a few that were particularly effective.

The Nap Dress, "It was re-marketed to be 100 times before I bought it—and it's the best thing I bought (for myself) this year. I also get so many compliments on it.
Silk pillowcase "They're supposed to be really good for your skin and hair too!"
This gigantic Rihanna book
These Moonlight Dream pajamas

Lauren's Picks

Lauren had a year between running a business, writing a freaking book, and taking the entire CC team remote. Here are a few of her de-stress purchases.

A barre3 subscription
A ring light, to look as good as the influencers on camera
Some artwork from Society6 "to spruce up my home office."
Some cozy joggers

We All Recommend: A Day Off (From Everything)

We're huge proponents of the whole work-life balance thing, and one of the best ways to recharge is to spend a day (or two or three) focusing on self-care. Even if you're not traveling this year, take some time to recharge and catch up on a tv show (or ten). It's been *a year* so please "gift" yourself the time off that you've already earned. We've even provided tips on how to take a day off without causing "trouble" at work.

We All Recommend: A Good Sweat

Stressful day at work? No motivation to do anything? Did your mental health day off do nothing? Gift yourself some sweet sweat!

We know, the gyms are closed. Even if they're open by you, you might not want to go. Lucky for you, at-home fitness is a booming business—and you can access some great at-home workouts for little or no money at all. Here are some of our favorites:

barre3
Melissa Wood Health
Jessamyn Stanley
Trainer Kaitlin (free on YouTube)
Obé
Fitbit
Peloton Digital (not the bike, but also maybe the bike? Can we come over to use it?)

Gifts to get You ready to Take 2021 On, Career-Wise

What are your goals for 2021? Let's take them on—and let's get started early. Here are a few ideas to motivate and get yourself into gear (but only after you take a few luxurious baths and chill for a little bit.

For Your Career

We're talking more and more about the importance of soft skills and remote work-specific skills in 2021. To that end, we created a few online courses to help the modern employee with the most lucrative skills to get the job, keep the job, and get promoted.

To Get Some Clarity

A career coach can be like a therapist, best friend, and advisor—but for your career. If you're struggling with the direction of your career, your industry, or whether you want to get into management, we have a coach for you. Check out our roster of seriously impressive career coaches today for 1:1 support

To Get Your Personal Brand Going

Did you know that 56 percent of hiring managers have named a personal portfolio website as the most impressive personal branding tool?

If you haven't set up a personal site for yourself, you're missing out. Regardless of whether you want to run your own business or just have a more professional web presence to help bolster your career, December is the ideal time to start planning a 2021 project. Use the next month or so to get the learning curve out of the way. By January you'll be ready to go live. Sign up for a trial, pick an aesthetically-pleasing template, and get your online presence going.

Don't forget to use our discount code CONTESSA10 to get 10% off your membership! And if you want more step-by-step support to create a portfolio site, we can help with that too.

And there are a few items we might need for our office—wherever our office is these days.

A comfortable and elegant office chair (Aliya also loves this one)
This Edison-esque table lamp
A laptop stand to keep your computer cool
This leopard laptop sleeve from Baggu

*We want to let you know that some of these links are affiliate links. That means when you purchase some of the items we listed, Career Contessa could earn a small commission at no cost to you. We only recommend items we know and love. Thank you for supporting the brands that help support Career Contessa.

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Career Contessa Team

Career Contessa is an online job search and career advice resource. Since 2013, Career Contessa staff have been writing career advice articles on a variety of topics from job search to advancing at work with insight from experts, research-backed tips, and personal stories to help you become more fulfilled, healthy, and successful at work. When tackling big pain points like job search, interviewing, and career transitions, we need all hands on deck. The articles attributed to the team feature hard work, research, and real experience.