Look, you shouldn't search for ugly sweater—you'll end up with one that's all obvious and funny about it. If the recipient knows you did it ironically, you've failed: the "prestige" moment is when they chuckle and say, "Haha! An ugly sweater!" and you respond with stone-faced silence. Just get one from this Etsy search; if they run low of good options, here's something at Amazon that's unlikely to sell out.

Behold, a truly fantastic gift for the cat in your life — catnip-filled soft toys shaped like amoebas, cyanobacteria, and (pictured above) giardia.

Giardia are microscopic parasites that can invade the guts of vertebrate animals, including cats and humans. Generally, you get it by ingesting giardia-infested feces. For humans, this mostly means contaminated drinking water, because giardia are harder to kill than you might think. They can survive quite happily outside of a host and are resistant to chlorine.

Blue giardia cat toy

Read more on giardia (and see pictures) at the CDC website

Faber Castell's Perfect Pencil is described by the ad copy as "the culmination of the history of the pencil", which somehow does not quite prepare one for the eye-watering $240 price tag—or that of the $500 gift set! Don't worry, though: refills are only $50. [via Uncrate]

Previously: The new Palomino Blackwing 602 pencil is a fine tribute to the Eberhard Faber Blackwing 602.