Gift Guide

Holiday gift shopping just got a whole lot easier. With the uninhibited access that online shopping provides us to a plethora of brands, we can shop any time, from anywhere, for anything. The holidays are usually a cause of stress because many of us don't know where to begin when it comes to shopping. But, those days are over...

For this Challenge, we're calling on our creators to help us put together the ultimate holiday gift guide! Are you the person all your friends go-to for shopping advice? Or, are you always in the loop with small businesses, ethical brands, and hot deals? We want you to create the perfect gift guide for this holiday season, but think outside the box! We're all too familiar with Amazon, so for this Challenge, we want you to curate a list of your local favorite shops, unique Etsy picks, Black-owned businesses we should all support, and everything in between.

Whether you want to curate this guide for a specific person you have in mind (such as a skincare enthusiast in your friend group or the family chef) or have a roundup of good gifts for anyone, we can't wait to read your lists. Enter the Gift Guide Challenge and share some of your retail wisdom! Be sure to include links or social media profiles of these businesses in your story, so we can get our shopping started!

For your story to be eligible, it must be between 600 and 5,000 words and adhere to our Community Guidelines. Stories published on Vocal and entered into the contest up until December 30, 2020, at 11:59 PM EST will be entered for consideration. Official Rules for the Challenge can be found here.

The Gift Guide Challenge is exclusive to Vocal+ members. To learn more and upgrade to Vocal+ visit https://vocal.media/vocal-plus.

To be eligible to win the grand prize, second place, or third place prizes, you must be over the age of 13 and residing in a country where Stripe is available at the time of entry. A complete list of countries where Stripe is available can be found here—winners will need to have a Stripe account created and connected in order to receive the prizes. For this reason, entrants located outside of any of these 39 countries will not be eligible to win.