14 Gifts for People Who Are Perpetually Cold (2024) | WIRED

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It’s getting cold outside, and it's even worse for a person who’s always cold. The first crisp morning of the season sends your poor, perpetually cold loved one diving under the bedsheets, digging for the fuzzy socks, or fiddling with the thermostat when your back is turned. (Don’t look—they’re probably doing it right now.) This year, give the gift of warmth to your friend who is constantly shivering, sniffing, and suffering. From protective layers for outdoor adventures to cozy accessories, here’s how to show your hypothermic human you care.

For more ideas, check out our many holiday gift guides, including the best Practical Gifts for Exhausted New Parents, Gifts for Travelers Who Have Everything, Gifts For Hikers, Backpackers, and Outdoorsy People, and more.

Updated October 2024: We replaced older picks with newer warm ones, like slippers, flannel sheets, and a backyard hot tub. We also updated links and pricing.

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These tiny stackable mugs from Yeti are so unbearably cute that I have a hard time looking at them. Like most of Yeti's drinkware, they're dishwasher-friendly and come in a wide variety of colors. The ceramic lining means that your wee splash of Fireball whisky won't taste metallic when you sip.

These are perfect for stashing in a bag or jacket pocket when you just need to stop in a coffee shop and slide it under an espresso machine for a quick hot cortado. Through cold and rainy Oregon winters, I use them to make matching cups of piping hot cocoa to lure my 6- and 8-year-old out of bed every morning. (If you really want to impress the littles, get a milk frother so that milk is extra velvety.) They don't come with a lid, but the smallest Yeti Magslider lid fits ($10 at Amazon or Yeti). These would also make great camping mugs for a niece and nephew.

Do you share a bed with your favorite perpetually cold person? Consider upgrading to cozy flannel sheets. Crisp cotton is nice in the summer, but for the winter months, your loved one wants to snuggle down into fluffed-out fibers. Bonus points if you put a hot water bottle at the foot of the bed so they don't spend many shivery minutes waiting for their toes to heat up.

In the winter, there are days when the cold reaches down into my bones, and the only thing that helps is loads of hot water, either internally (in the form of tea) or externally (in a hot tub). For now, I visit the communal hot tubs, but I really want this for the backyard. My spouse will never put up with the amount of maintenance that a home hot tub requires, nor the inflated power and water bills. But maybe he will read this guide and reconsider. (Hi, honey!)

Speaking of hot water, this is the best way I've found to take some of it on the go with me. The Mountain Tumbler is an insulated, double-walled mug that has a tea basket that fits inside. You can put a few spoonfuls of any tea of your choice into the brewer basket and pour hot water over it. You can either screw the top on and let it steep or toss after a few minutes. I love this thing. I make tea, leave it in my car while I hike the river or stand around a playground for a few hours, then sit in the car to warm up with piping hot tea three hours later. It has a specialized sipping lid, but I've sometimes had to take the lid off entirely to let my tea cool down, because it's too hot. If you give this as a gift, I suggest including some tea to go along with it. It's not one of the company's bolder blends, but I like the chamomile from the Tea Spot.

Don't want to wait for tea to brew? Instead of steeping, you can simply plop Tea Drops in a mug of hot water, where they dissolve into a lightly sweetened, aromatic pool of bliss. The “drops” are clusters of organic tea leaves, packed tightly into adorable shapes and wrapped in recyclable packets. This sampler set comes in a ribbon-ready box—a perfect gift if you’re gunning for a shout-out on your frigid friend’s Instagram. Plus, it's one of our favorite gifts from BIPOC-owned businesses.

If your perpetually cold friend doesn’t already have one, get them a space heater. I own this slightly older model, and while I wouldn’t say the heat fills up my entire 10 x 12-foot bedroom, it does a solid job of keeping my desk area comfortable for the whole work day. My favorite feature is the auto-off timer, which makes it so that I can feel safe falling asleep, knowing it’ll shut off within an hour. In the morning, I can wake up, grab the remote from my nightstand, and lollygag in bed while the room heats up.

Bonus points if your perpetually cold giftee lives with someone who is not perpetually cold: This space heater can prevent acts of violence from being committed over the thermostat. Trust us.

Puffer Hug has a few different insulated, nylon scarves with pockets. The Original Puffer Hug ($50) is a real nylon scarf with a pocket on the end. The new Scarf 418 is more of a—I don't know how else to say this—it's a puffy, cozy nylon dickie with two pockets and buttons that let you seal it around your chest.

It's perfect for your ever-chilly loved one to wear under a wool coat or a raincoat, if they don't want to do the full-on Michelin Man layering routine. However, these pockets are so handy that I will often just wear my insulated dickie buttoned up around my house. I look a little silly, but I often look silly anyway.

Objectively, the hoodie is the perfect Cold Person garment. It's both an outer and an inner layer, and you can just pull the hood over your head if you forgot your hat. You never have to take it off!

While everyone at WIRED has different favorite hoodies for their activities and body types, the one that I'm wearing the most right now is Fjallraven's Vardag hoodie. It's 100 percent densely woven organic cotton and has no PFAS, which I look for in garments that I'm wearing all day. I wore this for a full weekend at a river cabin, by which I mean sitting by a fire all day and all night. The cut is perfect—loose enough to wear a layer underneath but slim enough to wear under a puffer. For a little more warmth, put a merino wool base layer underneath.

Every perpetually cold person has dozens of gloves, but they always need more gloves, because you're always losing and finding gloves again. Over the years, I have tried so many pairs of gloves for hiking, biking, and snowboarding. But for everyday wear, I keep coming back to the North Face Etips. The sizing is perfect. They're touchscreen-compatible, and the fabric is thin and stretchy enough that I can still use my hands to unzip things or manipulate my keys. For rainy weather, I also like Showers Pass knit gloves ($47), which have a membrane to keep your hands dry.

If your loved one is perpetually cold, then odds are they have many, many sweaters, hats, and vests, but not very many insulated pants. For some reason, so many of us walk around in multiple layers on our core, and none on our shivery, goose-pimpled legs. I have a few options that your loved one might like. Wild Rye's Payette Pants are made from recycled polyester and insulated with Primaloft. The soft, relaxed fit feels very fashion-forward, especially when worn with the cropped, matching Payette pullover top. Wild Rye caters to women mountain bikers who have a wide range of body types. The waist is elasticized, and while the legs are very long, they also have drawstring cuffs so you can shorten them or tuck them into boots.

If you're not ready to start wearing a full-on set of puffy pajamas everywhere you go (I am), Snow Peak makes quilted pants that are more tailored and look a little more like regular pants, and I also like Eddie Bauer's fleece-lined jeans. Or they could cut out the footbox on a sleeping bag and just walk around like that. Any port in a storm, as they say.

Your personal perpetually cold person probably has toes that are always colder than Edward Cullen's icy, sparkly skin. We have many favorite slipper picks in our Best Slippers guide, but these are the ones that I'm wearing right now. At 7.4 ounces, they're incredibly light—they weigh about the same as a pair of running shoes—and they're made with a proprietary last that creates a lot of arch support and hugs your heels.

These slippers aren't loose. That won't be to everyone's liking, especially if you like shuffling around in big, fuzzy socks. But I really hate sliding around in soft, oversized slippers, and I like how stable these are. The only thing worse than being cold is falling off a stairstep in a pair of too-big house shoes. The snug fit actually makes my feet feel warmer. The upper is insulated, and it has a fleece-type lining so you can wear it without socks (but also, I'm usually wearing them with socks).

“This price? For a blanket?!” Hear me out. Yes, it's expensive, but the Rumpl blanket is exceedingly warm and durable for its lightness. I have an obsessive relationship with this blanket. I have one on my couch, one in my cargo bike, and one in my car, where I’ve been able to whip it out for chilly mountain camping and spontaneous winter beach bonfires. So far, it’s held up to several years of sand, dirt, and a chaotic dog that tries to dig a hole in every surface she encounters. It is a veritable shield against cold, so your frigid friend’s outdoor fun doesn’t have to end when the temperature dips.

Skida is a Vermont-based brand that makes colorful outdoor accessories that have a cult following among outdoorsy women. Do you have women in your life? Are they around you right now? One of them might be wearing a cute, printed beanie even as we speak. These headbands are designed to keep sweat from getting in your eyes while protecting you from the headwinds. You can choose between the lightweight Nordic headband or the microfleece-lined Alpine for extra coziness. As a plus, their headlines are made in Vermont, and the microfleece is made of 87 percent recycled materials. Just one question remains: Which of the (many) colors and patterns will you pick?

Look, there are times when only the biggest, puffiest jacket will do. I look forward to when the temperatures drops in the fall and I can shoulder myself into this jacket again, like a female Kenny from South Park. This is the warmest parka that Patagonia makes. It's made from 100 percent recycled Gore-Tex with a waterproof Gore-Tex membrane that is, again, free from perfluorinated chemicals or carcinogens that linger in the soil and groundwater. The face fabric is also 100 percent recycled and partially made with yarn spun from ocean plastic.

I wear this jacket while cycling and hiking. It inflates me to about four times my actual size and I love every inch of it. It has kept me dry through a cold rain when temperatures hovered around freezing. I particularly love the insulated, adjustable hood and the huge pockets, located right on your torso when you need to huddle and keep your hands warm. Unfortunately, it only comes in men's sizes and it costs as much as an iPhone.

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