It’s the most wonderful time of the year and I won’t hear a thing to the contrary. Here are some festive ideas if you’re shopping around for something on the nerdier side.

(And if any of you are Grinchily just looking to treat yourself, I approve of this and suggest you scroll straight to the bottom.)

Maker Advent Calendar

First things first as we’re running out of time — not just because this calendar sells out most years, but because we are perilously close to Advent and need to gather our baubles and get it together.

The Pi Hut’s Let it Glow Advent calendar features twelve days of fun dedicated to all things light up, flash, or blink. The first day of the calendar includes a Raspberry Pi Pico H microcontroller, a micro-USB cable, and a couple of breadboards to get you set up and ready for a December full of LED projects.

From December 1, you can follow along with The Pi Hut’s daily online box guides to help you make use of whatever you have just prised from behind that day’s calendar window. Sounds amazing.

Buy Maker Advent Calendar – Let it Glow (inc. Raspberry Pi Pico H) from The Pi Hut (£45).

Stocking fillers

If you’re not sure which boards, microcontrollers, or peripherals suit the needs and skill level of the maker you’re buying for, you can’t go wrong if you stick to the merry world of Raspberry Pi merchandise.

From mugs and mouse mats to stickers, tote bags, and clothing, there will be a bit of Raspberry Pi merch that will fit your gifting brief.

Pretty much all of our Approved Resellers offer merchandise for delivery. Visit our Raspberry Pi Approved Resellers page, scroll until you see your country or select ‘Rest of the world’, and get shopping!

Choosing the right hardware

I’ve tried to make a simplified list of groups of Raspberry Pi products to suit different styles of makers, as it’s likely you’re reading this blog as a gift-buyer for a Raspberry Pi lover and not necessarily a fan yourself. Here goes…

Plug-and-play desktops

If you want to gift someone a computer that just works, choose a Raspberry Pi 400, 500, or 500+. (You can save some money if the person you are buying for already has things like a mouse and an unused screen lying about…)

Raspberry Pi 400

Raspberry Pi 400 can be picked up from £57.60 if you don’t need additional bits like an SD card.

Raspberry Pi 400 is your complete personal computer, built into a compact keyboard. It’s also available as part of a complete kit including a mouse, a power supply, a preloaded SD card, an HDMI cable, and the official Raspberry Pi Beginner’s Guide. You can find these kits from £76.80.

Buy Raspberry Pi 400 (unit only) or a Raspberry Pi 400 Personal Computer Kit.

Raspberry Pi 500

Raspberry Pi 500 is a more refined and powerful model (available from £172.80) if you think the user will want to push their personal computer a little harder. This model is also available as a standalone unit or a full kit, from £192.

Buy Raspberry Pi 500 (unit only) or a Raspberry Pi 500 Desktop Kit.

Raspberry Pi 500+

If you are looking to push the boat out, Raspberry Pi 500+ is our premium desktop computer that lives inside a backlit, tactile, clicky keyboard that can be fully customised. This is a good choice if you’re after an extra special treat for a confident maker who takes pride in the way their workstation looks.

No screen? No stress.

If your giftee hasn’t got a display going spare, you can pick up an official Raspberry Pi Monitor, which is designed to work perfectly with all of the options above.

The prices listed above are cited online by Raspberry Pi Approved Resellers at the time of writing and do not include local taxes or shipping costs.

Affordable fun to throw inside multiple projects

If you know a maker who tends to burn through lots of hardware and is always showing you their latest build, they will probably be happier with a handful of our most affordable microcontrollers so they feel more confident to tinker away, break things, and have a go at new ideas.

Raspberry Pi Pico 2

Raspberry Pi Pico 2 is the next big tiny thing in computing. It’s a powerful, flexible microcontroller, available from £4.80.

You can pay a tiny bit more for a board with headers if you’re buying for someone who doesn’t own a soldering iron. And you can choose a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W if you think they would benefit from having wireless capabilities. If you want both of those things, go for a Raspberry Pi Pico 2 W with headers.

But you can’t go wrong with a regular Raspberry Pi Pico 2 — they will definitely find something to do with it!

Niche choices for confident makers

If you know nothing about Raspberry Pi but you KNOW the person you got for Secret Santa is a true turbo nerd who could build an entire robot by themselves, they might get a kick out of some of these more niche products.

Raspberry Pi for your bookshelf

Hardware is only half of the fun; the other half is working out what to build with it. Raspberry Pi Press has been busy this year, releasing a number of new titles you could gift someone on your nice list.

(Plus, books are the easiest thing to wrap, so it’s a no-brainer that will make the recipient brainier.)

Buy a quick gift for yourself…

And if you need that fleeting but irrefutable high of buying and receiving something right now, we have good news…

We launched a brand new e-book offer this week, and better still, you can name your own price and get reading right away. The Humble Tech Book Bundle: Raspberry Pi Cyberdecks, Retro Games, and More from Raspberry Pi Press features five new books published this year, as well as some titles from years past.

Perhaps most excitingly, the bundle includes the Raspberry Pi Guide to Cyberdecks 2027, which is exclusive to Humble Bundle donators — the rest of us won’t be able to get our hands on it until it is officially published next year!

Pay as little as £4 ($5). Normally, the total cost of the books included in this bundle is as much as £255 ($341), but you can choose the price you pay and support the Raspberry Pi Foundation in the process.

Check out all of the titles available in this brand-new Humble Bundle.