Executive Gift Guide
The IBJ newsroom has compiled a list of favorite gift ideas for the 2024 holiday season. All have some connection to Indiana—and most are made by an Indiana company, manufactured in the state or sold at a locally owned shop. We also asked community leaders to tell us about their favorite gifts.
Food and drink
Our food and drink category is heavy on the drink, thanks in part to the growing number of distilleries and wineries in the state. We’ve picked some favorites, but you can learn about even more on the Hoosier Distillery Trail, the Wine, Wine Anytime Trail, Hoosier Pie Trail and more. Check out the Indiana Culinary Trails Passport at VisitIndiana.com.
Outdoor and adventure
Whether you want to relax around a fire in the backyard or disappear for a few days in the wilderness, we’ve got some ideas to help you out, starting with the beautiful, wooden fishing lures at right made by Crawford County artist Bob Sturgeon.
Home and office
Initially, we tried to break this category into gifts for the office and gifts for the home, but the lines were just too blurred. (That Indianapolis Motor Speedway wooden wall hanging would look great in an office or a den.) The result is our largest gift category, with whimsical, practical and beautiful items you can use wherever you spend most of your time.
Technology and gadgets
Gadgets make great holiday gifts, and our selections include items for creators, bird lovers and those who can’t stay off their phones (if you’re looking at your phone all the time, it might as well be beautiful). Plus, we’ve got an innovative Indiana-made device meant to keep you safe.
Apparel and accessories
This list is meant to move you beyond a simple necktie or socks as a holiday gift. Instead, try a handmade accessory, such as a bag from Howl & Hide or jewelry from an Indiana artisan, or a stylish watch or bracelet from a local jewelry store.
Experiences
Many of us have too much stuff, which makes a ticket to an event or a gift certificate for an experience a great gift option. The experiences on this list will have you up in the air, up close to an elephant and exploring some of Indiana’s most beautiful places.
Books and music
Central Indiana’s locally owned bookstores and record shops are full of great gift options—many of them featuring local musicians and writers. We have one non-Hoosier artist on this list: Isaiah Thompson, winner of the Indianapolis-based American Pianists Awards jazz competition last year. Thompson’s “A Guaraldi Holiday” CD, released in 2023, is perfect for that Peanuts’ fan on your list.
Unwrapping
favorite gifts
We’ve all received gifts that stand out in our memory, whether it’s for sentimental reasons or because they are just so practical. We asked business and community lead-ers (including our own CEO Nate Feltman) to tell us about their favorite gifts.
Nate Feltman
IBJ Media CEO and owner
A World Series baseball signed by former Chicago Cubs catcher David Ross, who played on the 2016 World Series winning team. Ross later served as manager of the Cubs. The ball was a Christmas gift from Feltman’s best friend, David Hartley. “It sits front and center behind my desk.”
Felicia Lawrence
WTHR-TV Channel 13 news anchor
A baby blue crocheted blanket after Lawrence became a mother this spring. “My mother gifted a crocheted blanket to me for the birth of my son. I found out she spent months on the blanket because it includes individual stitches from all of our closest friends, family and loved ones.It is cherished!”
Doug Boles
Indianapolis Motor Speedway president
“On Christmas Day, my dad always gives me parts of his longtime Indianapolis 500 collection of memorabilia pieces. My dad was a PR guy for the U.S. Auto Club in the ’60s and has so many things that relate to my job today and the history that makes [the Indianapolis Motor Speedway] so special. So it’s something I look forward to every year.”
Will Pfaffenberger
“Smiley Morning Show” cast member on WZPL-FM 99.5
A VacLife Handheld Vacuum, which he received as a Christmas gift. “My son arrived in 2015 and my daughter in 2019, and ever since, my life has gotten real crummy! Not like that. Crumby as in Goldfish crackers, potato chips, cookies, granola and anything that can crumb. Every surface in my life is food confetti. This compact cordless handheld VacLife vacuum has been a necessity. I have one for almost every room in my house and my car. I’ll even use this thing to vacuum the crumbs right off of the kids directly. It’s so little and easy to use, my little crumb-machines are now vacuuming up their own messes. That’s like a double gift.”
Suzanne Crouch
Indiana lieutenant governor
Youth First donation. “Each year, a friend in my hometown of Evansville makes a financial donation in my name to the Youth First organization. This means so much to me and is the perfect gift.”
Vop Osili
Indianapolis City-County Council president
Advice from his father, who was director general of the Federal Ministry of Works in Nigeria, where he oversaw roads, infrastructure and highways.
“He had a job that demanded a fresh mountain of choices to make every day, none of them easy. But he took them head-on. ‘Take a decision,’ he would say to me. ‘If you’re wrong, you can go back and correct it. But don’t waffle—take a decision.’ I don’t know if he thought of his advice to me as a gift, but I do. His words taught me that indecision is a luxury leaders can’t afford.”
Scott Willis
Westfield mayor
A former colonel in the U.S. Marine Corps Reserves who retired in 2022 after a 30-year career, Willis received a flag from his Marine unit. “We had about 13,000 Marines under my care, and they took the colors and they had it framed with a little placard below it with a little motivational saying of what they appreciate about you as their leader, and that probably had the most impact. It’s on my wall at home, and it’ll remain on my wall at home until I die.”
Ting Gootee
TechPoint CEO
A Christmas trip to Marco Island, Florida, in 2021. On that trip, she said, she discovered a love of collecting shells on the beach. “It’s now a life-long passion. Same in shelling as in life: You never know what you will find, but you got to keep trying!”
Christopher “Toph” Day
Elevate Ventures CEO
Life Savers candy. Day said he grew up in a family whose budget was tight, so there wasn’t much money for candy. “But no matter what, every year [at Christmas] my parents bought all the kids a fancy book of Life Savers, and I loved the packaging and bright colors. Still buy one every year for myself now that both parents have passed—and one for my son.”
David Rosenberg
Indiana secretary of commerce
A video compilation from his wife for Father’s Day. “For my first Father’s Day after my son Will was born, my wife sent me a video—a 12-minute compilation of pictures and videos of myself and Will from his birth through that Father’s Day. She had been covertly taking videos and pictures of those innocent, everyday moments—the things that are easy to forget especially in the haze of the early days with a first child. Will is 5 now, and it’s amazing to watch and remember the times of him as a baby. But every time I watch it, someone is coincidentally cutting onions near me!”