Top Ten Ideas for Gifts Under $100 for San Francisco Citizens

1. Museum goers would be delighted to receive an annual membership to the dramatic new de Young Museum. For $70, your gift recipient will get unlimited free admission all year to the de Young and also to the Legion of Honor, including all the special exhibits. They can also bring a guest in for free - maybe that guest will be you! Other perks include a discount in the stores at both museums, special members-only events, and being able to bypass the general-admission line.

2. The Red Vic Movie House may be the strangest theater in San Francisco. Seating is on padded benches and ancient creaky, saggy red theater seats. Popcorn is served in wooden bowls, and you can get brewer's yeast sprinkled on top. (Butter is also available for the less adventurous.) The repertory programming changes every few days. It's a great experience for people who are tired of the sterility and uniformity of the multiplexes. For $25.00 you can buy a four-admission ticket which would make a nice gift for a movie fan. The ticket can be used for one or two people at a time, and it won't expire until it's all used up.

3. Green's Restaurant, run by the San Francisco Zen Center, serves delicious, creative vegetarian food in a beautiful space in Fort Mason overlooking the bay. Sunday brunch, served from 10:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m. each week, is less expensive than dinner, but it still feels like a special occasion. Treating someone to brunch makes a great gift (and one that you also get to enjoy yourself!) Reservations suggested.

4. The Friends of the Urban Forest is a non-profit group that helps communities plant more than 1,500 trees in San Francisco per year. You can make a donation and designate it as a gift in honor of your gift recipient. For a $50 donation, your gift will be designated a "Tree Tribute," and a certificate will be sent to your recipient. This can be a heartwarming gift for someone who loves trees and loves the city.

5. Adopt an animal at the San Francisco Zoo. For a $50 donation to the zoo, your gift recipient gets to "adopt" an animal for a year. You select an animal for them - you can choose from bears, primates, cats, reptiles, insects, and more. Your recipient doesn't actually get to keep the animal - all animals stay at the zoo!! - but they will get a great package of benefits, which includes an invitation for two to the annual ZooParent day, a certificate of adoption, and a framed color photograph of an animal of the same species as "their" animal. This is a great gift to delight an animal lover and to help the Zoo at the same time.

6. Treat your recipient to a Best of Broadway show. Buy tickets now for an upcoming show. Tickets are currently available for Edward Scissorhands, Jersey Boys, Doubt, and Jesus Christ Superstar. Tickets are pricey, but if you select seats in the balcony, or for the previews, you can keep your costs to $100 or less for a pair of tickets.

7. Treat your gift recipient to a special holiday concert, the San Francisco Symphony's "Christmas Pipe Dreams." Listen, and sing along, to classic organ music and Christmas favorites played on a 9,000-pipe organ, the largest concert hall organ in North America. Tickets are $15 to $53 per person. This is an annual event, taking place this year on December 17, 2006 at 7:00 in Davies Hall.

8. Gump's is a store known for its expensive merchandise. But you can also find some items there in the under-$100 range. You can buy a set of scented travel candles for $26.00, a green-tea sampler set for $65.00, or an elegant silverplate Paul Revere bowl for $95.00. The thrill your gift recipient will feel when seeing a Gump's gift box: priceless.

9. Buy a 12" by 14" framed print of Richard Diebenkorn's "Cityscape I" at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art's gift shop for $48.00. Diebenkorn is a local favorite who was inspired by the Bay Area landscape, and "Cityscape I," a 1963 painting which is part of the SFMOMA's permanent collection, depicts a steep street in a style that is midway between realistic and abstract.

10. Candeloo lamps, also at the SFMOMA gift shop, are designed for kids but would also be a great gift for anyone with a sense of whimsy. They look vaguely like rabbits, with two earlike protuberances on the top. They are sold in pairs of two, and come in orange and fuchsia or blue and green. Each pair is $55.00, and comes with a recharger.