Believe it or not, Christmas is almost here, and we’ll mark this midwinter festival by getting together with friends and family and continuing to drink and eat far too much.

Meanwhile, we also buy gifts for those same friends and family members, whether they want them or not. Luckily, we’re here to help, and if you follow our festive advice, your gifts just might make it into the “wanted” category.

From now until Christmas, Cult of Mac will be putting together holiday gift guys full of ideas for the special ones in your life, no matter what their interests or your budget. Today, we’re looking at gifts that cost less than $30. Yes, that means you are cheap, and — seeing as you still haven’t bought anything despite it being almost Christmas — lazy.

Aside from being fatter and heavier than the the last-gen model, and running hot, and taking like a year to charge, the iPad is almost perfect. Apart from all those problems, of course.

But while those issues all stem from jamming a multi-million-pixel display into a mobile device, the iPad’s speaker is another matter. It sounds just fine — if you’re standing behind the iPad that it.

The SoundJaw Unlimited — itself a sequel to a thinner product — fixes that. And fixes it good.

SoundJaw was a small plastic widget that clipped onto the iPad 2 and reflected the sound from its rear-firing speaker right back in your face. I have one, and it is great — low profile, unobtrusive and very effective. I used it on a trip away last weekend so that we could sip tea and watch The Mentalist in a seaside hotel room (the SoundJaw fits the iPad 3 just fine).

Now, Denver-based designer Matthew McLachlan has come up with the SoundJaw Unlimited. It does the exact same thing as the original, only it will fit onto just about anything — the iPad and iPhone, and also the Kindle, Kindle Fire, Nook and even the giant Samsung Galaxy Note.

Are your ears strained close to cochlear ejection trying to hear your iPad’s muffled sound? A new $20 accessory currently pushing itself through Kickstarter will help you boost sound by redirecting the speaker towards the front.