10 great Christmas gifts for college students

(MoneyWatch) 

Having a hard time coming up with Christmas presents for college students?

No worries, here are 10 great Christmas gifts that your favorite college student would be thrilled to get.

1. Jambox speakers ($200)

These are incredibly small wireless speakers and speakerphone that you can carry in any room to enjoy streaming audio from a phone, computer or Bluetooth devices. With one of these speakers, which looks like a colorful block of cheese, you can have an instant dance party with music on your iPhone.

2. Roku ($49)

College students love watching South Park, Scrubs and their other favorite TV shows via Hulu, Netflix and Amazon, but it can be a pain to watch shows and movies on a small laptop screen. That's no longer necessary, however, with an amazing streaming media device called Roku. Plug the device into your television and watch your streaming video on a larger TV screen. It's that simple.

3. Livescribe smart pen ($99)

Smart phones are ubiquitous on college campuses, but smart pens can also be incredibly valuable. The Livescribe smartpen will make sitting through lectures much easier. With the pen, a student can record lectures while taking notes on special paper. Tap on the notes later and the pen will play back the appropriate audio.

4. Terrarium (Nearly free)

Terrariums are hot. You can buy them online, but it can be more fun to put one together and it will cost you next to nothing. Find a jar with a lid -- a quart size is great - and put pebbles on the bottom. Take a walk in a forest and find some small fern or other tiny plants, along with some hunks of moss and place them in the terrarium.

5. Zeo Sleep Manager ($99)

It's tough maintaining good sleep habits when you're a college student. Zeo Sleep Manager can help by tracking your sleep and alerting you in the morning to the quality of your slumber. You can sync the gadget to your smart phone.

6. DVDs of favorite TV shows ($20 - $30)

Give your college student DVD's of Dexter, True Blood, Entourage or whatever their favorite cable shows happen to be.

7. Electric tea kettle ($14 and up)

An electric tea kettle is perfect to fix a cup of tea on cold winter days or to heat water for ramen or a cup of soup. If you want to splurge, buy some Tevana tea to go along with it. My son loves Teavana's Jasmine pearls.

8. Fitbit Ultra ($99)

Perfect gift for any college students battling the freshmen 15. You may lose weight, despite dorm food, if you use the Fitbit Ultra, which looks like a thumb drive. The gadget, which clips onto your waistband, records your steps, flghts of stairs, calories burned and more data, which is automatically synced to your computer when the device is nearby. It also tracks how well you are sleeping.

9. Noise cancelling headphones ($30 - $300)

Help your favorite college student drown out noise in the dorm with noise canceling headphones. The best are going to be pricey.

10. Stocking stuffers

Skip the candy canes: What college students would like to see in their stockings are extra ear buds, thumb drives, packs of their favorite gum, beef jerky (big hit with my son), camera memory cards and gifts cards.

College Christmas gift image courtesy of Flickr user Brandon Giesbrecht.