Don't forget about chocolate for Christmas.

It's a little late to be posting gift recommendations, I know, given how long it takes to pack and ship stuff back home. This will be my fourth Christmas in Korea, and I just finished my fourth December trip to Insadong to look for gifts to mail home to family. Insadong is a cute neighborhood and some of the souvineers they sell there are sharp, but at this point my family is well-stocked in wall hangings, bookmarks, masks, figurines, and other pieces of Koreana, and it's challenging trying to think up something fresh and unique. I've been wanting to send back pieces of celadon, as it is a local specialty from where I used to live, but I'm afraid they'd break en route.

I went a different route this year and loaded up on chocolate. A while back at my local Home Plus I saw they carried Jeju Orange chocolate and Cactus chocolate, and a Naver search turned up a bunch more flavors. This past weekend at Namdaemun I picked up red pepper, kimchi, and citron chocolate, but passed on the green tea, laver, pineapple, sweet potato, chestnut, and red ginseng flavors. If your family is comprised entirely or predominately of middle-aged Japanese women, they also carry Winter Sonata chocolate.

The "old" Home Plus in Suncheon---we're getting another one---carries two kinds, and they cost 5,000 won for a box of 15. That's half of what they cost at Namdaemun. They taste pretty good---orange and cactus anyway---and would be an interesting gift if for no other reason than the novelty factor. Jeju chocolate is regionally famous from what I understand, so that's another reason to give it a try.

A little update here: As luck would have it, I've been clued-in to a post by regular-reader The Constant Crafter on another interesting gift idea: Korean New Years' cards. They're not only seasonal---well, with regard to the New Year---but make great souvineers all year round. They're pretty and they're crafty, and only cost about 1,000 won each. Perhaps most importantly, they're free of the ridiculous English that graces Korean Christmas cards. Don't get me wrong, my family and I like a good chuckle every now and again, and I do end up buying a handful of cards each year as mementos, but sometimes I'm just not in the mood to look at a half-assed, sloppy interpretation of one of our biggest holidays. Like if Americans started celebrating Chuseok for no reason, and gave out Chuseok cards with pictures of busty women on the front and captions like "I hope you get to kneel before these mounds this holiday season!"