Stocking Stuffers Under $15 That Get Used After Christmas

Thinking Putty is the one gift here that suits a seven-year-old and their grandfather equally. It's a silicone putty you stretch, twist, snap and bounce, sold in a round tin that holds 3.2 ounces. It never dries out, so a tin opened on Christmas morning is still soft next Christmas, and the maker says it leaves no sticky residue on your fingers.

The Intergalactic color is the reason to pick this one over a plain tin. It's heat sensitive: deep blue in the tin, then purple and pink where warm hands have been working it, with flecks of glitter through it. That makes it something to do rather than just something to hold, which is why it ends up on desks as often as in toy boxes.

The full-size tin sits right at the top of the budget. If you're filling several stockings, Crazy Aaron's sells smaller tins for much less. Two cautions: the maker marks it ages 3 and up with a small-parts warning, and putty and carpet are not friends, so it's a sit-at-the-table toy.

Poetry for Neanderthals is a guessing game with one cruel rule: you can only speak in words of one syllable. Your team has to guess the word on your card, and you have to get them there without any word longer than a grunt. Try describing a toothbrush that way. The laughing starts on the first card.

This is the Grab & Game edition, the pocket version from the makers of Exploding Kittens. The box measures about 3.7 by 4.9 inches and holds 60 cards and the rules, nothing else. It's for two or more players, ages 7 and up, and a game runs about 10 minutes. That size is the point: it lives in a bag, comes out at a restaurant table or on a long drive, and gets played far more than a big box on a shelf.

The catch is the card count. Sixty cards is enough for a few evenings, and a family that plays it every night will know the deck by February. And the box is cards and rules only, so keeping score is up to you: a pencil and the back of an envelope will do.

The Shard is a flat piece of stainless steel with seven jobs cut into it: a pry bar, a small and a large flat screwdriver, a cross driver for Phillips screws, a wire stripper, a bottle opener and a hole for the keyring. It weighs one ounce, and Gerber gives it a titanium nitride coating against corrosion.

It's the gift for the person who is always asking for a screwdriver. A loose screw on a cabinet hinge, a battery door on a toy, a paint can lid, a stubborn bottle cap: the Shard handles the small, annoying jobs that otherwise mean a trip to the garage. Because there's no blade, it doesn't raise the questions a pocketknife does.

Keep expectations in proportion. A drive tip on a one-ounce keyring tool gives you little leverage, so it loosens a tight screw less easily than a real screwdriver would, and its edges are angular in a pocket. As a backup that's always there, it's hard to beat at under $10.

Hot Cinnamon Spice is the tea that tastes like the holidays without being a holiday novelty. Harney & Sons blends black tea with three kinds of cinnamon, orange peel and cloves, with no sugar added, so it smells like a bakery and needs nothing stirred in. It suits the cold months that come right after the stockings are unpacked.

The gift is the tin. Twenty sachets come in a metal tea caddy that looks good on a counter long after the tea is gone, and each sachet brews one 12-ounce mug. A tea drinker can refill the tin, and a coffee drinker who likes a cup in the afternoon gets a reason to try one.

It's black tea, so it has caffeine; Harney sells a decaf version of the same blend for anyone who drinks tea at night. And cinnamon this strong is not subtle. Someone who likes plain tea may find it a lot.

Chili crunch is chili oil with the good part left in: crisp bits of fried garlic and shallot, chili flakes and sesame seeds in a jar of oil. Momofuku's, developed by David Chang's company, uses three Mexican chiles (puya, japones and de árbol) in grapeseed oil, and a little coconut sugar and mushroom powder round it out. A spoonful goes on eggs, noodles, rice, pizza, dumplings and anything else that needs a bit of heat and crunch.

It's an easy stocking gift for a cook because it's a pantry upgrade most people won't buy for themselves, and the 5.5-ounce jar is short and squat enough to sit in the toe of a stocking. Momofuku puts the original at three out of five for heat on its own scale: warm, not punishing.

Two things to know before you buy it for someone. It contains sesame seeds, so skip it for anyone with a sesame allergy. And a jar is used up in weeks if they like it, so this is a treat, not a keepsake. For a milder palate, the maker's Mild Garlic version is the same idea with the heat dialed down.

A Stasher bag is a zip-top snack bag made of thick platinum silicone instead of thin plastic, and it's the stocking stuffer that pays for itself in sandwich bags. It holds 12 fluid ounces, about a handful of crackers or a sliced apple, and closes with Stasher's pinch seal: you press along the top, no zipper track to line up.

What makes it more than a bag is where it can go. The maker rates it safe in the dishwasher, the microwave and the oven up to 425°F, so leftovers can be reheated in it and it gets washed with the plates. It's also a handy pouch for small things that shouldn't get wet: the maker points out that a phone's touchscreen works through it.

The catch is that one bag is a small gift on its own. It's a good stocking companion for someone who packs a lunch every day, less so for someone who doesn't. And silicone holds on to strong smells like garlic, so it's best kept for snacks, not leftovers from a curry.

Water Wow! is coloring for children too young to be trusted with markers. Each page is white line art; a child fills the chunky pen with water, brushes it across the page and the colors appear. When the page dries, it turns white again and is ready for another go. No ink, no paint, nothing to clean off the sofa.

The Animals pad has four spiral-bound boards and one refillable pen, which tucks into the front cover so it doesn't get lost. Melissa & Doug pitches it for ages 3 and up, and it needs no batteries. At 9.9 by 6 inches, it slides into a stocking and later into a diaper bag, where it earns its keep on car rides and in restaurant booths.

The limit is the one in the name: four boards. A three-year-old will have seen every scene by lunchtime, and the fun is in the reveal rather than in anything new. That's why Melissa & Doug makes it in dozens of themes, and why it works best as one of several small things in a stocking.

The Butterfly is the yo-yo Duncan has sold for decades, and it's still the right first one. Its two halves flare outward, wide like butterfly wings, which gives the string a bigger target. That's what makes the first tricks possible: landing the yo-yo back on the string is far easier than with a classic rounded shape.

It's a beginner yo-yo by design: a sturdy plastic body on a fixed axle, the simple kind meant for learning the basic throw. It weighs 48.8 grams and comes in red, blue, green and orange.

The least expensive gift on this list is also the one that asks the most of its owner. It takes some practice to wind and throw well, and a child who gets serious about tricks will want more spin than a fixed axle gives. Duncan's Butterfly XT, with a ball-bearing axle, is the step up when that happens.