Gift Ideas for Obama Fans

With a new president to be sworn in in January, one who already has legions of fans and supporters, one idea for gift giving this holiday season (or for any occasion) is to give Obama-themed gifts. With a variety of items and homemade projects, you can get a gift for your Obama fan that can fit any sort of budget.

The first thing you can do is go to Obama's official website and buy some of his campaign's gear, which is currently having a clearance sale with 50% off of everything. From $1 bumper stickers and buttons to a $15 navy shirt, each item bears Obama's circle logo and can fit any sort of budget. There is also a Shepard Fairy victory design on a shirt that is available after making a $30 donation.

Another official item that could make a great gift is one of Obama's books, "Dreams From My Father" and "The Audacity of Hope". Amazon.com has a list of items by and about the President-Elect, books available as hardcovers, paperbacks, and audiobooks. If you'd rather not pay high prices for shipping and handling, you can always check out used bookstores as they often have donated books in good or like new conditions. Sometimes libraries have bookstores either next to the library or in the same building, with funds going towards the library or library-sponsored programs.

If you'd like something besides a shirt or book for your Obama fan, you can always check out CafePress for originally designed mugs, buttons, teddy bears, and more. Shops like Liberty Graphics (http://www.cafepress.com/libertygraphics) and Shirt O Sphere (http://www.cafepress.com/shirtosphere) have pro-Obama designs as well as anti-Palin and anti-Republican ones on mini camcorders, barbeque aprons, bags, shirts, mugs, and buttons. There are also Christmas-themed pro-Obama designs on greeting cards and ornaments. If you'd like to browse CafePress, just type in "Barack Obama", "Victory Obama" or "President Obama" in their search field.

With Obama being such a popular figure, there are a few DVDs for sale that feature the President-Elect. A&E has a biography DVD on him, and the Asian entertainment site YesAsia.com, which sells Japanese, Korean, and Chinese Movies, has a US version of an Obama DVD called "Barack Obama: The Power of Change". Hoodz DVD magazine also has a DVD available on the President Elect.

For those who want to be more creative with their gifts, one option is to make an Obama scrapbook. Craft stores sell all sorts of scrapbooks for various prices, and there are literally a ton of scrapbook sites on the internet that sell supplies and offer ideas. You can either purchase magazines and newspapers that feature Obama news or find articles and pictures online that showcase Obama's path to victory and print them out. One way to personalize the scrapbook is to include pages in which the recipient can enter their own information, such as pages titled "Why I Voted For/Supported Obama", "My Memories of Election Day", "My Hopes for the Next Four Years", etc.

A trickier way to make a homemade project is to create your own DVD. Digital Inspiration (http://www.labnol.org/) is a site that has a page that details how to download and convert videos found on the web to a format that can be written to a DVD. This process does not work on YouTube, as the site explains that the popular online video site has a term that doesn't allow users to save YouTube videos or save them to a disc. Obama's official site even shows you how to do this on a page titled "Tutorial -Download and Make a DVD from web video" (http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/video_download_howto_r/) using RealPlayer. On the RealPlayer Plus section of RealPlayer's site (http://www.realplayer.com/playerplus), web videos can be burned to a DVD and also sent to an iPod. The download requires a $39.99 one time fee and certain system requirements.

A more user-friendly way to make a homemade disc is to make an audiocd featuring pro-Obama songs. There's the famous "Yes, We Can" Song by Black Eyed Peas' Will.I.Am, as well as "Illinois Boy," by Annie Palovcik, and "Barack Obama," by Cocoa Tea. Many other artists have made songs advocating Obama, including 6th Sense, Common, Joel Ortiz, Extra Golden, Docta Musica WashiWara , Fojeba, and Mighty Sparrow. A search on YouTube lists songs and accompanying videos (http://www.youtube.com/ObamaSongs). If you'd rather give a cd full of speeches instead of songs, or would like to give both, Amazon.com features a downloadable copy of the famous "A More Perfect Union" speech about race for $0.99 (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B001GUHRKO/ref=dm_ap_alb1). MediaFly.com offers a page featuring various speeches (http://www.mediafly.com/Areas/ObamaSpeeches), and the site is free to join. The UK website Guardian.co.uk has a downloadable version of Obama's victory speech on November 4th (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/audio/2008/nov/05/president-barack-obama-victory-speech).

From official gear to Christmas ornaments to scrapbooks and homemade DVDs and CDs, all gifts suiting all sorts of budgets, there are a variety of options for gift-giving for your favorite Obama fan.