Tech Minute: Gifts To Help Feed Holiday Partygoers

MINNEAPOLIS (WCCO) -- Instead of loading up on soda and candy for a holiday party, there are a couple of options to consider your guests could have fun with.

The Sodastream line of products gives people a relatively inexpensive option to make carbonated beverages at home. Soda stream has been tested by families for a few years. Some reviews claim the product will save a family of four a minimum of $200 dollars a year.

Best Buy in Eden Prairie sells the Sodastream Penguin for $79.99. The store also offers a variety of flavors of 500ml bottles of soda mix.

"For $4.99 (a bottle) you can make 50 carbonated beverages," said Best Buy Blue Shirt Stephanie Marshall.

Sodastream's carbon dioxide canister will need to be refilled. They can be taken to participating retailers that will send the canister to the manufacturer for a fee. To hold users over until the canister returns filled, replacement canisters can cost around $10 and $15 dollars.

A number of people are finding alternatives to filling the CO2 canisters, which may not meet FDA standards according to Sodastream's website.

Another product that would add a unique twist to a holiday party would be a cotton candy maker. Best Buy sells a model from Nostalgia that retails for $49.99.

"(It) allows you to make cotton candy, but with your own twist to it," says Marshall.

The gadget uses the flavor of a hard candy, such as a Jolly Rancher or peppermint, to make the cotton candy.