Top Holiday Gifts for the Firefly Fan in Your Life

Although Firefly did not achieve much popularity while it was on the air, the show has become a huge success since then. Thanks to the loyal fans of the show, who have dubbed themselves "Browncoats," there are many more Firefly fans today, four years after the show aired. If you know someone who is a fan of Firefly, and are looking for an idea for a unique or special gift for them, here are a few suggestions of items available through the internet, rather than at stores.

Jayne Hat
Jayne Cobb, portrayed by Adam Baldwin, is probably one of the most popular characters from the show. When I first showed a few of my male friends a couple of episodes, in an attempt to get them as hooked on Firefly as I was, the general consensus was "I wanna be just like Jayne when I grow up." In the episode "The Message," Jayne receives the gift of a hand knitted hat from his mother. The hat is beautiful in its atrocity - how else could a grown man get away with wearing a yellow, orange, and dark pink hat with earflaps and a fuzzy ball on the top? Despite the inherent ugliness of this hat, it is an exceptionally popular item among Firefly fans. There are a number of people who make and sell their versions of the Jayne hat on eBay, as well as on other sites all over the internet. The best ones that I have seen, however, are from Bootstrap Productions. For $30 plus shipping, you can get your own replica of Jayne Cobb's infamous wool hat.

Firefly Lanyards
Legendary Leatherworks makes leather Firefly lanyards, perfect for holding keys, name badges, or pretty much anything else you can put on a metal keyring. The best thing about these leather lanyards is that while they all have "The Browncoat Brigade" stamped on one side of the lanyard, the other side can be custom made to include nearly any quote from the show. There are some restrictions on the number of letters and spaces, but the people at Legendary Leatherworks are willing to make a lanyard with one of a plethora of stock quotes, or allow you to request a special favored quote. The lanyards are available for the low price of $10 plus shipping.

Wash-O-Saurus
Wash-O-Saurus offers several different Firefly related gift options. They have their take on the popular silicone bracelets that everyone seems to be wearing these days. These are imprinted with the Chinese characters for "serenity" and the word "Browncoat" in English. They also offer lanyards, though these are made of polyester and don't offer the option of having a favored quote printed on them. And, possibly my favorite of their offerings, are the "juggling goslings." Now you don't have to find the planet where Wash claims that the natives juggled goslings for entertainment, you can get a set of three small plush goslings and juggle them yourself. Aside from being a nice reference to the show, they are utterly adorable, and would probably be appreciated even by a non-juggling Firefly fan.

Although it seems fairly unlikely that Firefly will return to the air anytime in the near future, if ever, the fans of the show remain committed. All of the above sites are run by people who are, themselves, fans of the show. By choosing a unique Firefly-related gift for the Firefly fan on your holiday gift list, you can help spread the popularity of the show to more and more potential Browncoats. Perhaps some day we'll be lucky enough to see the show on TV again, but even if that never happens, Firefly fans can take joy in these fun gift ideas.