Gifts for New Orleans Natives

I have recently become close with someone who grew up in New Orleans and due to life circumstances has had to take up residence in Maryland, feeling sorely displaced from the city she loves. As holidays and occasions come and go I have to be crafty about finding New Orleans themed gifts to bring back that sense of home.

As you can imagine, there aren't an overabundance of NOLA inspired gift-giving ideas out there (though the Saints Superbowl win has helped a bit) and there certainly aren't any shops or boutiques of the sort in my area. Thank goodness for the internet and online shopping or I would be entirely out of luck.

I encourage you to take your time and shop online for a week or two so that you don't get overwhelmed because these sites are large webrings offering an extensive list of shopping links within.

Here are some of the New Orleans gift-giving ideas I've found through my online shopping adventures:

GumboPages.com

This is a great site offering something from every category you could want for gift-giving. It is, as I mentioned above, a webring, which is basically one large site which collects a variety of links to other New Orleans based shops.

Food:
From the bit I've learned about New Orleans so far, food seems to be one of the more prominent indulgences there and GumboPages has tons of great food shopping links.

Definitely check out the Cafe Du Monde site and the Blue Frog Chocolates site, the latter of which GumboPages posts was dubbed the best candy shop in New Orleans by "Gambit" for 5 years straight.

Don't skimp on this category because I'll tell you, once you get to looking at some of these food sites you won't be able to quit and I bet you'll find at least one solid gift idea right there.

Music:
Another staple of New Orleans living is the music.

GumboPages lists 10 local New Orleans based music shop links. If you know a New Orleanian music nut, GumboPages music section probably has the perfect gift for you: pick up a rare LP, a record, cd, concert posters and more from local, current or classic jazz musicians.

Fashion:
I spent some time perusing this section of the site when buying my last gift and truly love the "Dirty Coast" site which is primarily an apparel company, but also offers calendars, hats, Superbowl items, gift cards, and more. Be sure to check out their fun, colorful New Orleans t shirts,all with interesting slogans and images specific to New Orleans.

If you can manage to pull yourself away from Dirty Coast (which I confess I couldn't), there are still 12 other fashion sites to peruse on GumboPages.

Artistic Gifts:
Check out B-Native for locally created items by New Orleans natives. This site has some gift ideas in jewelry, glasswork, and art.

The GumboPages site also has a separate category listing for jewelry, so if you are primarily looking for jewelry, that is a good section of the site to focus in on.

GumboPages also features several New Orleans art gallery links (12 total), ranging from: pottery, photography,glass art, fine art and voodo folk art

Other Categories:
Other GumboPages categories include: Gifts, Grooming & Beauty, and Books.

NewOrleansWebsites.com

This is the other large New Orleans shopping webring I found, there are 42 websites within this one large base site. I won't list or discuss them all, I'll just focus on my 2 favorites, Cajun Creations and AngelWorks.

CajunCreations:
I don't know what more you could ask for than the gifts and items offered on this site. They have it all from: King cake mix, Cafe Du Monde coffee, voodoo dolls, Mardi Gras themed gift baskets, cookbooks, music cds, and much more.

2 favorites of mine among many on the CajunCreations site are the Jumbo Gumbo Gift Basket and the Louisianna Celebration Gift Bag. Both of these fall under $70, come with a large assortment of yummy and/or colorful eye-catching items that any New Orleanian will likely enjoy. Both come nicely gift wrapped and provide the opportunity to add a little extra gift of some Lousianna music to the gift bag/basket.

This site is a great first choice site for a gift option becasue all gifts are reasonably priced, well-packaged, and provide an array of goodies.

Angelworks:
Angelworks is a custom gift site. Here you'll find well-thought out gifts that focus on New Orleans holidays and ocassions. Among the gift choices are: Louisiana Products, Fleur de Lis Products, and Mardi Gras Products, as well as small item gifts such as: mugs, scarves, and magnets.

I purchased my last gift, The Mardi Gras Gift Basket, from AngelWorks and was pleased. They packaged it well, it was reasonably priced, and they even got it to my doorstep in the middle of a blizzard without delay.

Please note that Angelworks also provides free giftwrap or basket arranging service.

I hope that you'll give these sites a look and that this information will help you find the perfect New Orleans themed gift.