Local subscription services offer a trendy and convenient gift-giving option.

If it’s better to give than to receive, then it’s even better to give at regular intervals throughout the year, right? That sentiment fuels local businesses offering subscription services as a creative, thoughtful and recurring gift this holiday season.

Subscriptions provide the backbone for Real Good Fish, a business that sustainably sources fish from the Monterey Bay and beyond. This model is especially beneficial for fish, explains founder and CEO Alan Lovewell. “[Subscriptions were] a new way to improve the traditionally uncertain [seafood] markets,” he says.

Deliveries are typically made weekly, but customers can adjust or pause the frequency of their subscription. Some subscribers even choose to get their fish favorites, like California spiny lobster or Dungeness crab, shipped across the country for a holiday meal surprise. “For the holidays specifically, we have lots of members that take their seafood with them when they travel,” Lovewell says. “They’ll have us ship to their family so they can contribute something special to the holiday meal.”

Baker’s Bacon in Marina delivers chef-quality, hard-to-find bacon products to pork lovers nationwide. Owner Tony Baker (formerly the longtime chef at Montrio Bistro) slowly cures the bacon with a dry rub of spices and smokes it with applewood or maplewood chips. Items like back bacon, lardons and sous vide bacon arrive monthly (or less often, based on the subscriber), with a curated recipe from a celebrity chef.

For the holidays, Baker’s Bacon elevates roasted Brussels sprouts or adds smokiness to turkey and gravy. But Baker says breakfast, which most people prepare at home, provides another great opportunity for a bacon gift to shine. “Our regular, sliced bacon cooks up like any bacon in the store. It just happens to be more delicious,” he says.

It’s not just food that makes a lovely gift that keeps on giving. Local arts organizations like Carmel Music Society offer subscription packages for their seven-concert season. Now in its 97th season, Carmel Music Society presents classical, romantic and baroque ensembles.

Interested subscribers get personalized attention, working with CMS President Peter Thorp to organize seating and tickets. Post-pandemic, Carmel Music Society’s focus is on rebuilding its crowds. “We would like to see a larger audience,” Thorp says. “[A subscription] puts somebody in the concert who will likely come again.”