Agree that should probably avoid a direct  gift, perhapes  a  book or  something  adressed  to  him  and  put in his  mail  box,  or  see if his  school  does a chrismass thing taht you could  work through depending if you  want to  take it that  far.

 

doing a quick reread not  sure if  a  book  would be the   best, =P  have to judge if  he  has the attention span, one possible thing is  with the price of   hardware  and components  dropping through the  floor  is that you  can pick up things like small radios that  are decent for really low  prices torchs/ mini led lamps  ect

your in  / near palmy  arnt  you ?   id  be happy to  chip in if  so.  had enough  'stink' birthdays/ xmas  days  to be happy to  help some one else.