Surely I can't be the only one intimidated and dreadful of the chaotic and dizzying season of Christmas and the shopping habits that come with it. Walking down the busy streets of Toronto is usually hard enough to maneuver, and when holiday strollers stop to admire the stunning displays and sip their cocoa, it can be nearly disastrous. (Hey, I've got a train to catch!) Luckily, for people like me, online shopping sites have eased the pain of weaving through throngs of people strolling down Bloor Street or clumped together inconveniently above an escalator in the Eaton Centre. Unluckily for me and the rest of the world, we — somewhat foolishly — rely on a postal service and can be disappointed by delays and not having packages delivered on time. This is where I usually try to become a little more creative in hopes of giving something that will be loved, arrive on time and spare me the trouble of hustling through shops.

In previous years, my love for reading anything printed in the glossy pages of a publication led me to both give and receive magazine subscriptions as gifts. Part of the requirements of a good gift in my books is something that a person would really love, but would never shell out for on their own. As much as I love French Vogue, I would rarely buy a copy of it, let alone a year's supply, so you can imagine my delight when month after month I received my holiday gift. Awesome, right? Loving the idea of a gift that keeps on giving, I looked more and more into subscriptions of different sorts and last year, I stumbled upon a site called Birchbox.com.

Based in New York City and founded by two MBA-holding Harvard-educated gals, Birchbox was created back in September of 2010 and has a whopping 45,000 subscribers today. The monthly box is filled with four or five customized sample-sized beauty goodies ranging from makeup to fragrance to skincare. After filling out your beauty profile, certain products are selected especially for you. The Birchbox site also sells full-sized versions of the samples and a point reward system is used to encourage sales of the products. Shipping strictly to the U.S., beauty junkies around the world simultaneously sighed in frustration, once again being excluded by geographical boarders.

Purchasing a six-month subscription to Birchbox for my American gal pals last year left me feeling a little empty inside, and not with the feel-good gift-giving vibes you're supposed to get. Truthfully, I was a little (okay, a lot) jealous. Recently, while reading one of my last gifted issues of Flare, attempting to stay focused on gift ideas and not selfishly swoon over fur coats and glittery nail polish, my eyes nearly popped out of my head when I came across an article featuring Luxebox by Loose Button (loosebutton.com): a Canadian version of the Birchbox! I immediately signed up for a year's subscription for myself (it's the best value; you get two months free) after filling out my beauty profile to get the products best suited for me. Luxebox differs slightly from its American counterpart as Luxebox doesn't sell the products it sends out, but it does tell you where to purchase them if you choose to do so. I loved my Luxebox so much, gift-giving this season just became a piece of cake.