Personalised Christmas Gifts for the Person Who Says They Don't Want Anything
Every family has one. The person who announces in October that they really do not want anything this year, that they have everything they need, that we should all just save our money. And then on Christmas morning they open a bath set from the big shop down the road and their face does a thing.
They did want something. They just did not want stuff.
That is the whole problem in a sentence, and once you see it the shopping gets a lot easier. The people who say they do not want presents are almost never anti-present. They are anti-clutter, anti-waste, and anti being given something that clearly took four minutes to choose. What they will happily accept is something that could only have been meant for them.
Why personalisation changes the maths
A chopping board is a chopping board. It goes in a cupboard with the other chopping boards and nobody thinks about it again.
A chopping board with a family name on it, or the year they moved into the house, or a private joke that only three people understand, is not really a chopping board any more. It is a thing that gets used every day and reminds them of you every time. That is a completely different object, and it costs about the same.
This is why the no presents please crowd tend to make an exception. You have not added to their pile of things. You have given them one thing with a reason attached.
Four that work on difficult people
The board they will actually use. Our acacia cutting boards get engraved with a name, a date, or a design, and then they live on the kitchen counter rather than in a drawer. If the person you are buying for cooks, this is the safest bet on the page.
A coaster with their sense of humour on it. Sounds like a small thing. It is not, if you pick the right one. Our slate coasters run from sentimental to genuinely rude, and the right one lands because it proves you know them. People keep these on their desk at work for years.
Something for the room they are proudest of. A slate cheese board or a hanging slate sign works for the person who has just done up the kitchen and wants an excuse to mention it.
The pet. If they have a dog or a cat, buy for the dog or the cat. A pet portrait keepsake engraved from a photo of their own animal will get a reaction that a jumper never will. We have had people well up over these, which is not something we expected when we started making them.
The one thing to get right
Whatever you choose, the personalisation has to be specific. A name is fine. A name and a date is better. A name, a date and the reason is best of all.
Think about what you would say if you were handing it over and explaining it out loud. That sentence is usually the engraving. The Hendersons, est. 2019. Dad's kitchen, keep out. First house, second attempt. Those work because nobody else on earth could have been given them.
Order early, genuinely
Not a sales line, just how it works. Everything is engraved to order in our Guernsey workshop, and personalised pieces take five to seven working days before they even go in the post. December gets busy and we would rather tell you that in September than let you down in the third week of December.
If you know who the difficult person is, and you probably do, sort them now and enjoy the smug feeling for three months.