Ray Isle (@islewine on Twitter) is Food & Wine's executive wine editor. We trust his every cork pop and decant – and the man can sniff out a bargain to boot. Take it away, Ray.

As Christmas approaches, we’re now at the start of the mad scramble that those among us who are disorganized endure every year. Sure, people we know - elderly mall-going aunts, hyper-organized mothers, friends with way too much time on their hands - have already finished their gift shopping, but those people are annoying. And, they probably got you a sweater anyway.

So, for the lackadaisical, type-B, fun people of the world, how about a few wine gift suggestions? After all, we may be a disorganized bunch, but we do know how to improve a party.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

If you go to xmasclock.com, you can watch the seconds tick away until Christmas. Not to stress anyone out who still has holiday shopping left to do, but I’m watching the minutes fly by.

If you’re still shopping for gifts for food lovers, you’re in luck - especially if that person is an aspiring mixologist, a wanna-be hipster or a black and white cookie fanatic.
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Raindrops, roses, whiskers, kittens - all lovely items to be sure, but perhaps not the gifts that will make the holidays glow as brightly as you'd like. Certainly not* if they're for the food lover in your life.

With that in mind, as a person who lives, breathes and, yes, eats food for a living, I'm sharing my personal list of beloved foods, drinks, gadgets, books and save-the-world gifts to fill the hearts and mouths of your favorite food freaks. And yes, they're all available online.
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It is no accident that Hanukkah comes in the darkest time of year. The winter holidays are about light, about miracles, and about waking up to light when it is least visible to the naked eye. Food-wise, we jolt our senses alive through texture, taste and flavor with fried foods that couple warmth, crispness, and the smoothness of oil in order to reinvigorate and fine-tune us just as the sun begins to seemingly disappear altogether.

For some, Hanukkah is "the potato pancake holiday" – a holiday that takes the mundane potato and gives it a massive makeover. It is shredded and tossed and recombined, squeezed and remolded into new form and then fried up lightly so that its texture shifts, its flavor alters. The latke (pancake) itself becomes the miracle of light, of oil, and of transformation.
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iReporter Marilynn's grandmother passed away at the age of 100 in 2010, and now honors her at the holidays through making the foods she taught her to treasure. Here, she fries up her grandmother's potato latkes.

There's no written recipe - just the memory of touch, sight and scent - and Marilynn's tie to her family and celebrations past can live on.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

You might be set with your holiday shopping, having taken good advantage of Black Thursday and Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday. Personally, I wish there was a day of the week given over to shopping for holiday gifts of questionable taste. So I’d like to propose Wacky Present Wednesday. That would be the day you’d get big discounts on items that crack you up as much - or more - than whoever is the lucky recipient.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

If you haven’t gotten your Christmas presents yet, boy, are you in trouble. Ditto if you’re still shopping for Hannukah, which started days ago. But you don’t need me to make this moment worse; you probably already feel like you’re in a bad episode of 24. Consider these gift ideas if you’re frantic to get a food lover something, anything. As they say, better late than never.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

In the Hall of Fame of holiday foods - gingerbread men, roast prime rib, potato latkes - chili is what you’d call a holiday underdog. Unless you’re a major player in the competitive chili circuit, it’s probably not a big part of your Christmas tree decorating or stocking stuffing. (And even if you are a chili champion, hopefully you know where to draw the line.)

Still with all the monumental things people are doing with chili these days, I just might shake up my holiday menu. Maybe my family will decorate bowls of chili instead of cookies? Just thinking.

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Nathan Berrong works at CNN's satellite desk and this is the fourth installment of his beer column. He Tweets at @nathanberrong and logs beers at Untappd. Drink up.

Everyone has their own way of welcoming Christmas. For some, it’s putting up a tree or shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. For me, and beer nerds around the world, it’s purchasing the first of many Christmas and winter-release beers. These beers are made to please the taste buds and warm the body from the cold temperatures outside.

Traditionally, this is accomplished from adding spices like cinnamon and nutmeg or adding bitter ingredients like coffee and dark chocolate. Some brewers have bucked this trend and instead of brewing the more traditional Christmas-style beers, they brew their own interpretations of them, which include styles like IPAs or wheat beers. Regardless of the style, these are the beers I look most forward to coming out each year.
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Kate Krader (@kkrader on Twitter) is Food & Wine's restaurant editor. When she tells us where to find our culinary heart's desire, we listen up.

The gifts you give at Christmas say a lot about you. They can say, I Love You. They can say, I Didn’t Think About You Until the Last Minute Which Is Why I’m Blatantly Regifting This Gift to You. Or they can say, I Think You’re Pretty Weird and This Gift Reflects That. So, be on the lookout for the gifts below. They say a lot.

Bacon Wallet. It’s not like bacon is hard to find: you’ve probably already had a bacon doughnut, bacon cupcake and bacon-tini cocktail today. But the folks at Accoutrements seem to have thought long and hard about the last remaining non-bacon frontiers and gone for it. Hence their bacon air freshener, bacon (shaped) adhesive bandages and Mr. Bacon Bendable Action Figure. And, yes, the bacon wallet. Says one satisfied customer on Amazon: “If you’re rakin’ in the bacon, takin’ a bacon wallet is the best move you be makin’.”

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