2025 City Pulse gift guide

Set yourself apart this year, don’t be known as the online algorithm shopper in 2025.

Here’s a list of Lansing area shops that offer unique gifts, many of them are locally made and all of them will be a hit this year.

We’ve picked out a selection of gifts, including Lansing-centered (and Big Penny) art from Ryan Holmes, stained glass from Lansing Art Glass or you can give people the supplies they need to make their own masterpieces from Odd Nodd Art Supply.

And one of the most flexible gifts you can give can be perfectly crafted in Lansing: Gift baskets.

You can pack your own basket – grab one at a thrift store and wipe it down, line it with some colored tissue paper or a scrap of fabric.

Fill your basket by visiting a variety of Lansing shops to pick up chocolates, nuts, cheese, coffee and local beer.

Make it appropriate for the person you’re gifting to and a basket can be an incredible personal touch.

Or just grab one of the options off the shelf at Horrocks or The Cheese Lady.

And if a food-centered gift isn’t right, we’ve got music, books and shops that offer a ton of odds and ends and especially things you won’t find on those online apps.

 

Books

A Novel Concept

Starting at $18 for new softcovers

Tues.-Fri. 11a-6p; Sat. 11a-4p

222 S Washington Square

https://www.anovelconcept517.com/

 

A Novel Concept is a queer, feminist bookstore in downtown Lansing. It offers tailored recommendations and offers a space for local performances as the host of #LansingReads book club. There are always new recommendations, including a batch for the holiday season.

 

Out of the Woods reusable lunch bag

$26

Hooked

Sun.-Tues.: 8a-8pm; Wed.-Sat.8a-10p

3142 E Michigan Ave, Lansing

www.hookedlansing.com

 

The coffee shop/wine bar/bookstore offers drinks, atmosphere and a retro lunch bag.

This one is reusable, an upgraded small tote bag perfect for some soft cover books or an actual lunch.

With a nice clasp, it looks like a leather impersonation of the ubiquitous childhood lunch bags, but it’s made out of interlocking wood fibers that can be washed.

 

Compact discs

Flat, Black and Circular

$5 for CDs

Noon-6pm, all week

541 E Grand River Ave.

https://flatblackandcircular.net/

 

The East Lansing institution, since 1977, is back in the circular swing of CDs. Vinyl record albums are still popular, but the more affordable CDs are moving like they haven’t in years. The cheap bin starts at $1 per CD with more used CD choices available from hundreds of acts, and start at $5. The shop also sells clothing, artwork, books and offers gift cards.

 

Fancy chocolates

Fabiano’s Candies

$13.50 for a half pound

M-F 9:30a-5:30p; Sat. 10a-4p

1427 E. Michigan Ave.

https://www.fabianoscandies.com/

 

Fabiano’s has been serving up the good stuff – like candy and ice cream – for 100 years and is a capitol institution. Grab a ready-to-go box of chocolates, $13.50 for a half pound, or choose from their showcase selections of chocolates and candies. Or dive right in and walk out with a five-pound box of chocolates, enough to last you a full holiday party and maybe have some leftover.

 

 

Baskets

Horrocks Farm Market

Prices vary

7a-10p (beer garden and tavern are open for shorter hours)

7420 W. Saginaw Hwy.

https://www.shophorrocks.com/

 

Horrocks is a Lansing classic: An old-school grocery store with a wide variety of snacks and hard-to-find ingredients. Their holiday baskets range from $27 for a snack size to $150 for Kaylee’s Office Pleaser basket. In between there are beer, wine, gourmet and smaller office-focused options. The store can also make custom baskets, or you can pile up your cart with everything you’d want someone else to gift you.

 

 

Beer

Old Nation Brewing Co.

$16 for a four-pack of Frandor Claus

Brewpub hours vary; available in stores too

1500 Grand River Ave.

Home

 

When what to my wondering eyes did appear, but a jolly old dude and he’s slamming a beer? In 2023, local social media jokesters at Lansing Facts reminded everyone to leave a beer out for Frandor Claus, a holiday hero named for our most famous — or perhaps infamous — shopping center. Two years later, Old Nation’s Frandor Claus stout, blessed by the owners of Frandor, is available at stores statewide.

 

Michigan Oven Mitts

$12

Old Town General Store

Tues.-Sat. 10a-6p

408 E César E. Chávez Ave

https://oldtown-generalstore.com/

 

Old Town General Store is a Michigan-focused throwback to the old town shops that offered a little bit of everything. The store has a wide variety of gifts, and offers their own Michigan-centric baskets. Pick up one with Michigan popcorn, chips, candy and more for $44.

The shop is selling Lower Peninsula-shaped oven mitts, in Michigan State University white and green, along with plenty of other colors. Get the matching hot pad – also with a Michigan map but in a more-boring square shape –  for $7.50.

 

Peanuts and snacks

The Peanut Shop

$12 for a large gift tin with three choices

Mon.-Sat.: 9:30a-5:30p

117 S. Washington Sq., Lansing

www.lansingpeanutshop.com

 

A Lansing classic and holiday staple, The Peanut Shop knows what the people want: Snacks. Get all the nuts, sweets, chocolates, candies and treats that people have been demanding for generations and generations. Pick up a variety tin and give several different mixes at once.

 

Cheese and baskets

The Cheese Lady

Tues.-Fri.: 10a-6p; Sat. 9a-4p

2200 Coolidge Road, East Lansing

www.thecheeselady.net

 

With well over 100 varieties of cheeses in their coolers and shelves, The Cheese Lady is a perfect stop to get the just-right fromage for your gift baskets this year. The new East Lansing location will cut the cheese to order and with samples to get it right. There’s also a selection of Michigan-made jams, sausages, dips and charcuterie boards. And The Cheese Lady isn’t just for a piece of a gift basket, they make custom gift baskets including themes like Italian cooking.

 

Ryan Holmes Art

Prints start at $15

ryanholmesart.bigcartel.com

 

Holmes crafts a ton of great Lansing art, with themes like “The Elusive Sasquatch and the Search for Chip Dip” and “The Creature from the Flooded (Potter Park) Zoo” just scratching the surface. He is one of many local artists to have found inspiration in Lansing’s maybe-too-short Pennsylvania Street bridge, nicknamed Penny the Truck Munching Bridge. Holmes said his “Big Penny 100th Munch” print, with the bridge enjoying a candy bar-branded semi-truck, is a popular choice.

 

Art supplies

Odd Nodd Art Supply

Decider coins start at $15

Mon.-Sat. Noon-6p, until 5p on Sundays; open Fridays and Saturdays until 8pm through Christmas

317 E. Cesar E. Chavez Ave.

Odd Nodd Art Supply

This is where you get the stuff to make the stuff that makes people happy. The art supply shop has all the paints, pencils and other gear to get started or finished. They are featuring a handmade, no plastic, set of watercolors made by an indigenous family using time-tested natural paint recipes and served up on a slice of wood, $75 for the kit. Or for $32, pad out your presents with Pedro Pascal pens and paper.

 

Cards and stationery

Dear Ollie & Co.

Cards start at $5

Tues.-Sat. 11a-6p

222 S. Washington Sq.

www.DearOllie.com

 

Make memories on paper in a digital world, stop by Dear Ollie and get unique and hand-crafted cards. The shop offers a wide selection of journals, painting kits, notepads, stickers and ornaments. Ditch the Hallmark tradition this year and give them a card that’s a bit more personal and a lot cooler.

 

Stained glass

Lansing Art Supply

Pieces start around $15

Mon., Wed., Fri.: 10:30a-6p; Tues., Thur.: 10:30a-5:15p; Sat. 10a-4p

2320 E. Michigan Ave.

www.lansingartglass.weebly.com

The sun is still diminishing for another few weeks and what better way to celebrate the season, and the little bits of sun, than to put up a suncatcher. Lansing Art Supply has a wide variety of stained glass decorations, from small and large window displays and holiday pieces to ornaments and they also repair lamps or other glass pieces.

 

Refillable coffee tin

517 Coffee Co.

701 E. South St., Lansing

M-F 7a-2p; Sat. and Sun. 9a-3p

www.517coffeecompany.com

Coffee isn’t often thought of as a fresh product, but coffee fans who buy their beans from local roasters know it only takes a month for beans to start going stale. Not only does this Airscape Coffee Canister from local roasters 517 Coffee Co. keep coffee fresh for several months, it comes with $15/pound refills of any non-seasonal 517 coffee beans, a $6 discount on average.

 

Want to keep shopping?

Find more music at The Record Lounge (1027 S. Washington Ave.), Westlund’s Apple Market (2301 E. Grand River) and Music Manor (3333 S. Cedar St.).

Find more books at Triple Goddess Bookstore (2019 E. Michigan Ave.), Deadtime Stories (1132 S. Washington Ave.) and a new Barnes & Noble at Frandor.

And consider filling your basket with more general store finds or candy from Bad Annie’s Sweary Goods (1209 Turner Road), Kean’s (406 S. Jefferson St., Mason) and Rocket Fizz (217 E. Grand River Ave.)