Here`s my suggestion for a Christmas present -
Charles Eisenstein's book "Sacred Economics: Money, Gift and Society in the Age of Transition" is a book anyone interested in a world with an economic system no longer geared toward growth, but one where people are freed up to do the work they love and looking after the environment is rewarded as a matter of course.
This book both charts and describes emerging trends in work and develop's a practical theory of a new economics based on money which is no longer lent at profit. Or even and eventually a system whereby money naturally loses value (negative interest) via a method called demurrage. The point being that the economy as it is currently structured has to keep growing (and thus absorbing/using/consuming/destroying natural resources) to pay back the interest on money - as money (at interest) always requires more money to exist in the future to repay it. So to stop a system that inevitably has to grow and has to bring ever more of nature (the commons) into the sphere of money and consumption and bring in something different, something more benign, more natural, more human - change money. This book shows how it might be done - with supporting quotes from such figures as Keynes himself and senior US Fed Bank executives (and others).
Not a light read for sure, but very well written and extensively researched. The sort of book that helps you look at the world, the future and even your own way of life in new and positive ways - in a word inspiring.