We are asked the same question every December, usually in a slight panic, usually about someone difficult.
The honest answer is that most people do not want another thing. They want an evening. So everything below is chosen to give somebody a particular evening rather than an object.
We have grouped it by what you want to spend.
Under £20
Soy Wax Melts, Box of 8 — £14.95
Twelve scents, eight melts to a box. A gentler way into home fragrance than a candle, and the one to give somebody who is not sure they want a flame in the house. Windermere and Fell Berry are where most people start.
Good for: Secret Santa, a colleague, anyone at all.
Hammam Towel — £14.95
Flat-woven cotton with a tasselled edge, in five colours. It folds down to almost nothing, dries far quicker than a terry towel, and spends as much time over the back of a chair as it does in the bathroom.
Home for Christmas Mug and Cosy Socks Set — £17.95
A generous cream mug printed with a little row of houses, with a pair of soft red socks rolled into the top. It is a whole Christmas Eve box in one go, and it needs no wrapping to look like something.
Good for: the gift you need to be holding by Christmas Eve.
Cordless Dome Table Lamp, Brushed Silver — £18.95
A small domed shade on a slim base. Touch the top once for a low glow, again for something brighter. It lives on a bedside table until somebody carries it to the bath.
Good for: a teacher, a first flat, a student room.
Cordless Mushroom Table Lamp, Bronze — £18.95
The same idea in warm bronze, with a wider, flatter shade that throws the light down rather than out. Good on a shelf, better on a windowsill.
Cordless Stem Table Lamp, Brushed Gold — £19.95
A little taller, on a slender gold stem. The one that looks like it cost more than it did.
Every lamp here is cordless — charged by USB-C, carried from room to room, no wire trailing anywhere.
Under £40
Refillable Reed Diffuser Kit — £24.95
An amber glass bottle, a wooden top, a bundle of bamboo reeds and the oil to start it off. When it runs low you buy the refill rather than the whole thing again, which is the point. Four scents.
Good for: someone who quietly minds about waste.
Reed Diffuser, 140ml — £29.95
Fourteen scents, from the soft green of Windermere to the dark fig of White Fig. No flame, no switch, nothing to remember. It simply works away in the hall for a couple of months.
Fluted Cordless Table Lamp — £29.95
Six shapes, one idea: a fluted shade in a cornstarch-based bioplastic that softens the light rather than scattering it. Star, Cloud, Shell, Column, Teardrop and Moon. Three brightness settings, USB-C.
Good for: someone with strong opinions about their house. Let them pick the shape.
Cordless Glass Lantern Lamp, Antique Brass — £34.95
A glass chimney on an antique brass base, with a carry handle. This is the one people pick up and move — down the garden in October, onto the kitchen table in December, back to the windowsill by January.
Twelve-Day Christmas Village Advent Calendar — £39.95
Twelve doors, and behind each one a small house or a piece of the village. One a day, set down as it comes out, until there is a little street along the mantelpiece by the twelfth.
Nothing here gets eaten, which is rather the point. The pieces go back in the box in January and come out again next year.
Good for: a family with children, or anyone who starts Christmas early. Order it in good time — it wants to be on the mantelpiece before December begins.
The Woodsmoke Edit — £39.95
Three woodwick soy candles that belong to the same dark, wooded evening: Ash & Woodsmoke, Wolf's Moon and Twilight Vine. The wick crackles. That is most of the appeal, and we make no apology for it.
Good for: someone whose taste you do not know at all.
Under £60
Home Fragrance Gift Set — £49.95
A 140ml reed diffuser and the botanical soy candle in the same scent, so the room holds one note rather than two arguing. Windermere, Seasalt & Moss or Fell Berry.
Good for: the person who already has everything except a quiet hour.
Flatweave Cotton Rug, 130 x 170cm — £54.95
Handloomed cotton in charcoal, cream or pale grey. Big enough to sit under a coffee table, light enough to shake out at the back door and put straight back down. The most useful thing on this page.
The Fireside Edit — £59.95
A set of three real-wax LED pillar candles and a glow lantern. Warmth without a flame, for the corner of the room nobody quite knows what to do with.
If you would rather choose yourself
Everything we have is grouped by the evening it belongs to rather than by category — Quiet Evenings, Calm & Reset, and The Bathroom Spa. The Cordless Lamps and the new Textiles each sit in a room of their own. The new Christmas Village gathers eight pieces made to go together — the burners, the mugs, a jug for winter stems and the calendar above. Or the whole of Christmas Gifting in one place.
Three honest notes
Delivery is included in the price rather than added at the end. And because we only post the once, two or more things come with ten per cent off the order — it seemed fairer than charging you for a parcel we send anyway.
We are a small shop and we do not gift wrap. If an edit contains two pieces they may reach you in two parcels, because they are sent from where they are stored rather than boxed up by us first.
And we will always tell you where a thing was made. The lamps are made in China, as are the Christmas Village pieces. The throws, the Hammam towels and the rugs are woven in India. We would rather say so than let you find out from the box.