If you waited until the day before Christmas to buy your gifts, don’t fret. Here are some quick ideas and how much they cost in our last minute guide.
'Twas the day before Christmas
And if you waited too long
You might struggle for ideas
You might sing a sad song
But hold up with the anger
Put your misery aside
We're helping with ideas
In our last minute gadget gift guide.
With only one day until what is arguably the biggest day on the December gift-giving season, there’s a possibility you are rushing to get the best gifts you can find. After all, tomorrow is Christmas, and Santa can only bring so much.
Whether you’ve struggled to work out the best present or just haven’t had the time to get it sorted, don’t get angry.
Simply take a glance at some of the ideas in this gift guide, featuring rough pricing, overall box size, and places to find them, all to help make the last minute buying process that little bit easier.
Decent headphones
Price: from $99
A good gift for anyone who likes music — which is pretty much anyone — headphones can keep anyone happy because of what they offer: sound and comfort, and all from a person’s device of choice.
We say the word “decent” because you typically want to stick with brands you know, but we’d also suggest checking out the reviews of headphones to see how decent they are. The better the headphone, the better the sound and lifespan. You might want to consider the Sony CH720N for $149 or the CMF Headphone Pro for $199 in the over-ear world, or even $199 for either the Bose QuietComfort Earbuds or Beats Studio Buds+ as examples.
Headphone box sizes are typically about as big as a couple of trade paper books packaged together, making it a little difficult for the recipient to guess, but a decent size under a tree.
As for where you can find decent headphones, any electronics shop or department store will have you covered, including Big W, JB HiFi, The Good Guys, and so on. You can probably guess.
eReaders (Kindle, Kobo)
Price: from $99
It’s difficult to get past the gift of reading, opening minds to words and ideas aplenty, and while a book is nice, the option of a whole lot more in a small size is also handy, too.
Electronic book readers like a Kindle or a Kobo make that possible, and they may even make it possible to check out books from the library without ever leaving your home.
While Amazon’s Kindle makes it possible to get books digital from Amazon, Kobo and other non-Amazon eReaders can typically access local libraries in Australia using the Libby and Overdrive systems, meaning an eReader owner can quickly find their way to checking out plenty of books without owning the books in the first place.
Box sizes for eReaders tend to be quite small and slim, making them difficult to guess, but easy to mistake for a DVD or Blu-ray. People don’t really buy those anymore, so it can be a bit of a false positive.
You’ll find eReaders from any electronics or department store, and office supply shops such as Officeworks may sell them, as well.
Xbox controller and a Game Pass gift card
Price: from $149
It might surprise you, but you don’t actually need an Xbox to play games.
Thanks to Microsoft’s cloud gaming concept, you really just need an Xbox controller and either a phone, a tablet, a laptop, or even just a recent TV, plus a subscription to Xbox Game Pass. We all have at least one of those, making an Xbox Game Pass Ultimate gift card an easy last minute Christmas buy, which makes more sense when paired with an Xbox controller.
Clearly, a gift card is a super thin box, but when paired with a controller, it becomes a little lumpy and much larger, making it a touch more surprising than simply a gift wrapped gift card.
Electronics retailers and department stores are the place for this one, but even supermarkets will have the gift card.
Robo-vacs
Price: from $650
A weirdly large present to give to people at the holiday season, robotic vacuum cleaners aren’t just a large box, they also give the gift of cleaning without thinking to people.
You only need to ask a product reviewer how big these boxes are, because they are massive.
Robotic vacuum cleaners are basically built to make life easier, and may include a stick vac in the design, giving you two gadgets to deal with one life problem: the automated machine for the maintenance, and the stick vac for the problems the robotic vacuum won’t deal with. Many will even mop your floors.
That makes them a great gift for someone tired of the chores of being an adult, and a gadget that can be found at any electronics shop, including a Bing Lee or The Good Guys, but Aldi might have them, as well.
TVs
Price: from $1400
Clearly the biggest box, a TV is a clear last minute gadget buy on the day before Christmas, but a great item all the same.
Whether you spend over $3K on something premium or something far less, TVs from the past year are pretty much all you’ll find in stores, offering 4K Ultra HD resolution, lots of colour, and a recent smart TV operating system built-in.
Typically the brands you know will be the best, largely thanks to the investment in the technology powering them, but you can sometimes find a good deal with lesser brands.
However, you typically need to go to a decent brand — a Samsung, LG, Hisense, Sony, TCL, and so on — to get something with one of the better panel technologies, such as OLED or Mini-LED, which provides solid colour reproduction over standard LCD TVs.
As you can probably imagine, electronics retailers are your best bet for these, though some department stores may surprise. We’ve even seen a TV or two at a large supermarket before, though its quality mightn’t be as up there.
I O U and a promise for tomorrow
Finally, there’s a promise for a gift in the coming days with a note, and an idea that you’ll get something when the sales kick off from Boxing Day.
Much like Black Friday sales, Boxing Day sales typically provide great deals for people who want something, as shops and manufacturers mark down gear to mark the end of that year, ahead of the launch of new gear in January at CES 2026.
You don’t need a box for an IOU, but if you want to make it slightly nicer, maybe grab a gift card to a store of their choosing to hold them off for the moment, because you can find those anywhere.
