This is the season of giving, whether it is for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanza, or just to exchange gifts. So, with so many people here self-employed and thus lacking a company to give out those turkey dinners, terrific bonuses, and whatnot; I thought it would be a great idea to provide a list of real and fantasy gifts that would be perfect for the freelancer in your family, even if it is yourself.

The Perfect Gift For Every Freelancer

A Matched Set of Angel and Devil ‘lancers: Set the “Devil ‘lancer” on one shoulder to tell you what you should be saying to that client that wants five more changes in two days and then doesn’t give you the materials until the day they want the job done. Set the “Angel ‘lancer” on the other shoulder to whisper the appropriate firm, but polite response while the devil in you is thinking “an emergency on a client’s part does not constitute a panic for you.” You can decide to take the Angel’s argument about keeping the client happy and accept the changes and tight schedule while giving yourself an outlet to silently vent.

Five More Hours In Every Day: Use these hours to be good to yourself and your family. Take the time to listen without being distracted by deadlines and design issues. Really be there. Take a walk, visit a museum, go out to dinner and a movie; just live. And must of all, permit yourself to enjoy the time off.

One Get Home Free Card: Use this card to manage an impossible project that you underbid for price and time so that you make it on time and somehow earn some money. You can use this card only if you learn from the experience to set an honest price that is not swayed by a client’s argument that they don’t have the money or that they can get an offshore contractor who can do it for a much much lower price. The card comes with an electronic buzzer that gives you a little shock each time you feel sorry for a potential client or are tempted to accept an impossible assignment.

A Grateful Thank You From Your Client: This gift might not be for all freelancers, but for those of you who rarely hear a complement at the end of an assignment, this gift is for you. I just think that it is a nice thing to hear someone say a kind word when you have given your best to a project. A genuine thank you goes a long way to mitigating those long nights and difficult requirements you had to fulfill.

A Magical Skills Machine: This is an iPod or mp3 player containing instant learning so you can keep up with the latest trends in your profession. Do you ever look around and realize that you’re missing large swaths of training and you don’t have time or the inclination (or funds) to return to school to learn. I know I feel quite envious when I look at those gorgeous CSS-based websites that I know I will never have the ability to create because CSS is becoming so much about programming as it is about defining layout and I don’t have the head to comprehend the intricacies. Well, this gift will give you those skills you want to gain without muss or fuss. Of course, because of Moore’s Law, you’ll need to buy a refill often because technology moves ahead so rapidly. Prepare to spend to keep up.

All kidding aside, this has been a rough year to be in business for yourself. The competition is stronger and fiercer and the payouts seem lower while the technological requests seem higher.

I think we all wish we had the ability to be the perfect businessman, technician, and creative genius. The best gift we can give ourselves is to relax and accept our good points and where we’ve succeeded as well as those things we are lacking (which we can work on for the future).

So what real life gifts would brighten the day of someone who works alone out of their home or a small office?

Three Real-Life Gift Ideas

Smashing Book: This is 300 pages of Smashing Magazine goodness that provides information “…about best practices in modern Web design. The book shares technical tips and best practices on coding, usability and optimization and explores how to create successful user interfaces and apply marketing principles to increase conversion rates. It also shows how to get the most out of typography, color and branding so that you end up with intuitive and effective Web designs. And lastly, you will also get a peek behind the curtains of Smashing Magazine.”

A One-Year Subscription To The Stock Photo Site Of Your Choice. Getty Images, DreamTime (http://dreametime.com), Jupiter Images, Corbis, and other online proprietors of high-resolution, royalty-free photographs and photo objects. The cost of good royalty-free images that haven’t been used over and over again is very high. Here is a gift certificate to your favorite site. Mine is DreamTime because it’s prices are reasonable, the photos are changed often because DreamTime gains its images from freelancers and so offers true-to-life natural photos along with the stock photos you see over and over again. ShutterStock (http://shutterstock.com) is my second favorite for the same reason, although its subscription price is very high.

A Gift Certificate To The Font Foundry Of Your Choice: I’m a font-a-holic. I love typography, so I thing one of the best gifts would be $1,000 to spend on font packs and my favorite font site is http://fonts.com (what used to be known as EyeWire). The development of software for browsers that allows the inclusion as type of different fonts from the same old six standards (Times, Arial, Trebuchet, Verdana, Impact, and Georgia) provides a huge release in creativity for online design. With the price of OpenType and PostScript fonts not coming down, this is the gift for you.

General Good Wishes For The New Year

We all want the economy to pick up so that we can make a good living doing what we love. So I wish all of us jobs that pay for the effort needed to do them right; clients that understand and are easy to work with; and a working environment that is less stressful and more fun, be it from learning better business practices, from the ability to purchase lower-cost and higher-benefit healthcare and other insurance, from obtaining the technology we need to do our jobs, or simply by acquiring clients who keep coming back for more business.

Here’s to a happy, healthy, and successful new year.

ThinkGeek Giveaway: Hidden Bookshelf

Freelancers who spend all day at home need a little diversion. What better way to distract oneself from the daily grind than trying to convince people that your books are capable of holding themselves up against a wall? Today’s prize is ThinkGeek’s Hidden Bookshelf:

“Look at this stack of books… How is it staying up? Is it glue? Velcro? Tractor beams? The secret is a simple and clever little device called the Hidden Bookshelf! An L-shaped wedge of metal holds your books up against the wall while a tiny clip holds the inside cover of the book up, giving your larger books the illusion of sticking to the wall as if by magic!”

To win this prize, all you need to do is follow FreelanceSwitch’s Twitter account, and tweet about this competition (with the page URL in the tweet). Then leave a comment with your Twitter username so we can verify–and ensure you use your real email address when you leave your comment so we can contact you if you win. Nobody other than Envato staff will see it. See this post for terms and conditions.