The stereotypes are true: Nobody ever asks dad what he wants for Christmas.
Now don’t get me wrong! I live a fortunate life. My kids and partner are delightful, I do interesting work surrounded by amazing people, my gaming PC would make teenage Brad drool, and I even find time to hang out with friends and family a few times a month.
Is it busy? Yes. Would I trade it for something else? Never.
Every Christmas, I get thoughtful, unforgettable gifts from My Amazing People — things I never would have discovered myself. But it is simply a fact that nobody — not my mom, not my kids, not my partner, no one — has asked what I might want for a gift in at least a decade. That’s not a complaint whatsoever. It’s simply a factual statement.
So this year, I decided to write my own Christmas list. Feel free to take inspiration from it for the nerd, gamer, and millennial dads in your own life. Or just hit those links if, like me, you get to buy your own toys. They’re (almost) all still available in time for Christmas if you order soon!
SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless gaming headset
My current set of cans is a disaster. The Razer Kraken Pros served me well during thousands of gaming sessions and esports romps, but now their ear padding is clinging on for dear life thanks to a judicial application of duct tape (it fixes everything).
I haven’t replaced them yet because, you know, rent and food and kids’ sports ain’t cheap, especially when you’re a single dad. But I’ve been eyeing a replacement headset for when my tax returns or an extra paycheck rolls around, and I know my next set: SteelSeries’ Arctis Nova Pro Wireless gaming headset.
These came out in 2022, but they nevertheless check every box I seek. Sterling audio and mic quality are table stakes of course, but as a geek, I’m drawn to the deep software personalizations available. More importantly, this S-tier headset connects not only to PCs, but also all major gaming consoles, with crucial dual wireless functionality that lets you swap between sources with the press of a button. Putting a game down in my office and picking it up in my living room will be a breeze.
But the real draw is Active Noise Cancellation. Sometimes I just need some quiet, man — and the SteelSeries Arctis Nova Pro Wireless delivers. Interestingly, a feature we listed as a negative in our review (“Active Noise Cancellation won’t block out all external sound”) is actually a positive for me. I want to hear if my daughter starts yelling or a pipe bursts.
The Düngeonmeister Cookbook
Jef Aldrich/Jon Taylor
In THIS household we stan Dungeons & Dragons. But my daughter is in high school and won’t be part of THIS household much longer. So, I want to level up her life skills while she’s still in tutorial mode.
Enter The Düngeonmeister Cookbook, a tome so delightful my colleague Gabriela Vatu highlighted it in her own geeky gifts roundup as well. Want to try your own bardic tavern food? This comes with 75 recipes — delightful dishes like Dwarven Battle Pasta, Adamantine Bars, and Dragon on a Stick Easy-Eat Meat Skewers — and since they dovetail with our D20-rolling interests, I’m sure my kid would love rolling up her sleeves and making meals with me.
Personal time with the kid and delicious eats? How can you go wrong?
Amazon says this will show up by Christmas if you order with rush shipping today. But if you miss the deadline, there’s also a Kindle version available to download.
Luca Designs Men’s Commander Jacket
I’m obsessed with Mass Effect. (Let’s forget Andromeda exists.) How obsessed? I burned through not one, not two, but four original Xbox 360s plagued by Red Rings of Death and disc read errors so I could keep hold of the console’s awkward side-slice hard drive and finish my original Shepard’s trilogy. I sobbed so hard during the run at the end of ME3 that it made my then-wife start crying in sympathy.
So yeahhhhhh… I’d kill for this leather N7-themed jacket from Luca Design. Good god, I’d be raring to endorse my favorite store on the Citadel in this beaut. It ain’t cheap at $350, but damn.
Speaking of my favorite store on the Citadel, Luca Design’s own website is full of amazing recreations and inspirations from pop culture. Just look at this amazing Samurai jacket recreation from Cyberpunk 2077. I’m drooling. There’s something for every gaming, anime, and comic geek there, man or woman!
None of these will arrive before Christmas, including the N7 jacket on Amazon alas… but if you gave me a card saying this would land at my doorstep in a few weeks, I’d downright swoon.
Nextmug self-heating coffee mug
I start my days getting up before dawn to drag my kid to school, then return home to take a walk, shower, and start my workday — a workday that starts at full speed since PCWorld is a multinational team that operates across the globe. My coffee often goes cold, is what I’m saying.
But it wouldn’t with a Nextmug. This ingenious device keeps your coffee at warm (130 degrees Fahrenheit), hot (140) or piping (150) for up to two hours away from its dock, or indefinitely when you’ve plopped it the charging pad, no apps or extra software required. That’s it. And that’s all I want.
Is it worth $95 to keep your coffee warm all day long? As a dad whose schedule is packed until about 10pm tonight: Absolutely.
More Gift Guides!
I’m a GenX tech expert. Here are 15 gifts and gadgets just for the dudes
I’m a tech-obsessed millennial. Here are 20 geeky gifts & gadgets I’d buy for myself!
An Apple gift card for Apple TV
Apple
Hi, I’m Brad, and I’m addicted to F1 racing.
Fortunately for my family, the season wrapped up just before the holidays (get it, Lando!), but I’m facing a pickle in 2026: F1 used to be on normal television via ESPN, but in 2026, all F1 races are migrating to Apple TV for the next five years.
Ugh. It’s not that much of a change, but I already pay for YouTube TV, Netflix, and a couple other streaming services. I’m not thrilled about the idea of paying for another service, but I won’t abandon the sport. Better yet, Apple TV’s version will include the deep, nerdy features previously only found in an F1 TV subscription, including auxiliary feeds showing cockpit views and radio transmissions for every team.
It wasn’t worth subscribing to F1 TV when I already had ESPN, but now that it’s on Apple TV? I’m quivering at the idea of watching full races from the perspective of my favorite drivers.
So someone gifting me an Apple TV subscription would be warmly welcomed and deeply appreciated, especially since I could spend weeknights catching up on dad-friendly shows like Severance and Ted Lasso. You can’t gift individual Apple TV subscriptions, but a $100 Apple gift card would cover the cost of the service for the year. Just sayin’!
TheraGun Relief body massager
Because I still work out and take walks, but I’m getting older and everything hurts.
The TheraGun Relief is one of TheraBody’s entry-level massagers, but I’m not willing to drop $250 or more on a more potent TheraGun until I’ve tried this and verify it’s worth the investment. I’m a geeky dad. I min-max buying decisions, what can I say?
Alienware AW2725D OLED gaming monitor
Matthew Smith / Foundry
Okay, back to the expensive stuff. (Maybe this is why nobody ever asks what I want?)
I’m a PC and gaming geek, but I’m especially a monitor nerd. I used to have monitors of all shapes and sizes before a devastating house fire in 2023 wiped ‘em out, and it’s time to finally get a decent replacement for all-around gaming. In 2025, that means OLED.
Ideally, I’d snag the sublime MSI MPG 272URX QD-OLED ultrawide, which just earned PC accessory of the year in our 2025 Full Nerd Awards. But here in the real world, bills are due and I can’t drop a grand on a display even if it’s worth the cash. Enter the Alienware AW2725D, a “budget” gaming OLED that hangs with monitors costing hundreds more.
Currently on sale and arriving before Christmas, the AW2725D is a 27-inch OLED gaming monitor with a 1440p resolution and a blistering-fast 280Hz refresh rate — the current PC gaming “sweet spot,” especially if you have an Nvidia RTX 50-series graphics card that can use DLSS 4 multi-frame generation to keep this beast fed with frames.
You can read our comprehensive review for more details, but here’s the upshot: This monitor will melt your eyeballs for a whole lot less than comparable panels. I want one monitor to rule them all until I can rebuild my collection and this one delivers bang-for-buck like no other.
Cards Against Humanity Nerd Bundle
Nothing’s better than cracking open some cold ones and playing Cards Against Humanity with my homies after a long week. The Nerd Bundle adds geeky flair to your combos, adding an optional Fantasy Pack, Geek Pack, Sci-Fi Pack, World Wide Web Pack, A.I. Pack, and Human Pack.
Sounds like it should pair well with “being a motherf***ing sorcerer,” one of my favorite cards in the base game. Er, one of my favorite cards that I won’t be fired for mentioning on this website, at least.
An RGB mousepad
Some people hate RGB in their gaming rigs and only want a neat, clean, svelte setup. Not me. I don’t want full-on rainbow puke, but I love customizing my desk with tasteful lighting accents.
Enter Corsair’s MM700 RGB extended cloth gaming pad. Not only does it include subtle, customizable RGB LEDs around the outer edge, but it’s also a big-ass cloth gaming pad designed to house both your keyboard and mouse, with ample room to mouse around. Competitive gamers need room to mouse around when they’re sniping and wall-dashing… and with the MM700 you’ll look good doing it. Imagine gaming on this while you’re wearing that sweet N7 leather jacket 😍
Some sweet-ass Full Nerd merch
Once again, my kid has to eat, so let’s end this with blatant shilling, even though I own most of this stuff already.
I’m genuinely a huge fan of the shirts, hoodies, and other merch that Adam helped create for our Full Nerd podcast. My favorite’s the Outrage Pony, but from Build It Yourself to the Smooooooth 30 tee poking fun at console gaming, I love letting my PC geek flag fly while I’m cruising around town in these bad boys.
If you want to be part of the Cool Kids Club, head over to our Crowdmade store, and be sure to follow our Full Nerd podcast on YouTube while you’re at it. We stream multiple times per week, digging deep into the hottest, geekiest PC topics of the day — because once you go Full Nerd, you never go back.