Blake Lively’s Guide to Holiday Gifting For Friends, Family, and Ryan

Actor, mother of four, and beauty entrepreneur Blake Lively doesn’t have a standard gifting equation (see the Tom Cruise coconut cake). Instead, she’s aiming for perfection over timely. “I always admire when people have a signature gift that they bring to parties,” Lively says. “But I always tend to overthink these things. I want to give the most perfect, totally custom gift.” Sometimes, she jokes, “that means the gift arrives in February.”

When we meet to celebrate her haircare brand’s collaboration with bracelet and bag company Stoney Clover, she’s just getting started. “My mom always taught me how good it feels to give to other people,” Lively says. “When you’re a kid, thinking about the holidays, it can be a lot of ‘What do I want?’ But my mom always made it as magical to buy for someone else.”

There is one go-to thing that she’s been gifting friends recently: Mahjong sets from the female-owned Oh My Mahjong. “I have been teaching friends how to play Mahjong, though I need to say I’m not a certified teacher. But I know enough to teach my friends how to play with me, and in the end, I always end up gifting them my own set because they are obsessed and want to practice.”

This year, she’s also excited about what will be waiting under the tree for husband Ryan Reynolds. “I’m not going to say what I got Ryan, but I really nailed it,” Lively says. “I actually thought of it last year, but I didn’t have enough time to get it done. But I made it in time for this year.”

When it comes to her children’s wish lists, it’s all the usual suspects—KPop Demon Hunters merch, Jellycats stuffies—along with a whole lot of Etsy shopping via their mom’s phone. “We’re a pretty crafty household and like to make things. Because of that, I think that they really appreciate handmade things. I’ll go in my Etsy cart and have like 147 items.”

“I can’t talk about giving gifts without bringing up this amazing program that Baby2Baby has right now,” Lively adds. It was important for her to get her kids involved, too. Each of them was paired up with a child their age to help fulfill their wishlist. “It really helped them understand and visualize that there are kids their age, in the same city as them, who are in need.”