Tag: Gifts

Christmas Gift Ideas for Family and Friends

On By samanthaIn SHOPPINGLeave a comment

I went to the dentist a couple of weeks ago, it was the 26th October and she asked “are you all ready for Christmas?” Huh? Christmas, we hadn’t even had Halloween. This year has flown by and I suppose I need to get organised. It will only be the five of us and my parents for Christmas lunch but I also have my elderly aunt and my parents over sometime in early December.

So gifts, I want to get on with buying them and wrapping them up as they arrive so I am not wrestling with the Sellotape for hours on end. I would like to say the presents I choose are all sourced from local businesses and, before I went back to work, that would be the case but now I have no time to go to the shops so they are mostly bought online. For my elderly relatives I now stick to Marks and Spencer vouchers and they can spend them on nice food if they wish. Here are my picks for other gifts for 2024:

Girls older teens/early twenties

Earrings, not very expensive because they lose them but no so cheap they will turn their ears green. I have chosen these nine carat gold studs from QVC, I bought them when they were on special offer, they are currently £75 which is a little expensive for a stocking filler. They will look nice with my daughter’s suits when she is on her new work placement.

Travel Jewellery Box from Oliver Bonas, because I always have to buy something when I go in to this shop, they sell so many pretty things. These boxes are reduced at the time of writing. They come in lots of pretty designs and are a useful, inexpensive gift for just about anyone.

Joggers from ASOS My daughter plays a lot of sport and all young people seem to live in joggers. Last year I bought her a fleece lined pair but I don’t think they were a hit. These are a little sleeker. I noticed while shopping for these that most of the styles now have wide legs but they’d trip my daughter up if she were wearing them for lacrosse practice.

Teenage Boys

Cash, that’s what they really appreciate but I will also buy some clothes for my younger son. Again, joggers, boys seem to prefer grey. Wide hems seem to be the trend for boys too but I have stuck to the traditional, cuffed style

Crew neck sweatshirt from Uniqlo. My younger son already has one of these in navy and the quality is great. He doesn’t tend to wear hoodies, he likes something a little smarter.

Suitcase, one of my sons is travelling to Australia next year and will need a new case. I was not terribly impressed with my recent purchase from Samsonite so am thinking of ordering this one by brand Americal Tourister from Amazon, Not a brand I am familiar with but this product has almost 1500 excellent reviews and is reasonably priced at £90.

Anti-theft laptop backpack, my older two children take very inexpensive flights where they cram clothes for a week into a backpack because it costs around £100 for them to upgrade to a small suitcase. I purchased two of these from Amazon in grey and in black, they have proved to be a winner so I will buy another for my younger son. My older son takes his into the office as does my daughter when she is on work placement. She said all the girls use similar, no one uses a traditional handbag for work anymore.

I always seem to be buying water bottles and then the lids get lost and they are useless. I am sure there are ten lids under my son’s bed but I daren’t look for fear of what else is lurking there. I will probably buy one or two of these from Chilly’s

Other sure-fire winners are those nylon, fluffy socks, slipper boots, plaid pyjama bottoms in brushed cotton, lip balm sets, body sprays and some of their favorite sweets.

Friends

I have about half a dozen friends that I buy gifts for, usually spending around £30 on average. Most of us complain about the amount of clutter in our homes and I am keen not to add to anyone’s burden of “stuff”.

For my friend who works from home I am going to buy this burgundy Parker Pen. I think it is a useful and elegant gift.

For my friend who takes her dog on lots of chilly walks I am going to buy her this cosy sweatshirt from Marks and Spencer which she can return if she doesn’t like it.

For my friend with whom I just exchange a tiny little gift, I am going to buy her this cute teddy keyring from Harrods. A very little bit of luxury.

So, an expensive and busy time of year, especially for women in my experience. Start writing your cards now, assuming people are still sending Christmas cards given the recent rise in the cost of stamps. My aunt writes her during August. Last year I sat writing ours for so long that my legs went to sleep and , when I tried to stand up, I fell flat on my face, not the best start to the festive season!

Happy Shopping!

Thank you for reading

Samantha

Makeup Bag and Cosmetics Refresh

On By samanthaIn HEALTHLeave a comment

For my recent birthday a friend gave me a pretty new make up bag from one of my favourite shops, Oliver Bonas. It has taken pride of place on my dressing table and replaced the Clarins freebie that I have been using for years. It also provided a good opportunity for me to go through my cosmetics and throw away some of the embarrassingly ancient, and probably horribly unhygienic, items. I have used the same Nars blusher everyday for about six years and it pained me to throw it away but even the case was falling apart. My optician told me that, in an ideal world, mascara should be replaced every six weeks because of the bacteria that accumulate with each use, definitely time to bin my antique Estee Lauder. I also got rid of my Clinique eyeliners, most of which had lost their caps, and replaced them with one from Lancome in a shade called Bronze. The Lancome is very creamy, easy to blend and the shade is flattering.

I also received a Clarins bronzer as a gift in the lightest shade they sell. I have never used bronzer before. I am very pale and have always thought it would just look too orange on me. I’m also not really sure how to apply it, I had to watch a YouTube video by Ali Andreea, a stunningly beautiful make up artist, to find out. Her tutorials make everything look easy and it is tempting to buy all of the high-end products she uses. The Clarins bronzer is comprised of two shades and the darker colour is definitely too deep for me so half of the product will go to waste. The lighter shade is pretty though when sparingly applied and I like the matte finish. I did buy another Nars blusher though so I am good for six more years!

I have also been trying out This Works Perfect Cleavage & Neck Serum I am not a fan of the fragrance but the product is lovely to use and easily absorbed. My neck feels well moisturised but not sticky after use. Like the rest of the planet, I spend too much time looking at a screen and am keen to avoid the dreaded “tech neck” and hopefully this may help. I have a This Works Stress Check Mood Manager spray in my home office for days when my work email inbox is filling up faster than I can empty it, it’s actually surprisingly effective and the fragrance is beautiful. I will be trying more products from this brand.

So, some successful and much appreciated gifts. Pretty things may not be important but they do make life that little bit nicer.

Thank you for reading

Samantha

Perfume Pretenders

On By samanthaIn HEALTHLeave a comment

My twenty year old daughter had some friends round and one of them walked into our house on a cloud of what of what I assumed was Chanel’s CoCo Mademoiselle. I have a love-hate relationship with this particular fragrance. I love it on anybody else but it smells slightly sour on me and is guaranteed to give me a migraine. There is a note in many Chanel fragrances that gives me a headache, I can really only wear Chance. My daughter’s friend said no way could she afford Chanel, they are all students, she was wearing Soft Iris by Marks & Spencer.

On my next visit to M & S I found the scent, priced at £10 and sprayed a tiny amount onto my wrist. An hour later it smelled prettier on me than Madomoiselle and, more importantly, no migraine! I bought a bottle. The range also includes a few other well-known perfume “dupes”. Pink Pepper is apparently a dead-ringer for Lancome’s La Vie Est Belle, a wildly popular and very sweet perfume . Fresh Mandarin supposedly smells like Caroline Herrera’s Good Girl. The girls in Ms Herrera’s fragrance campaign have to be good while the boys get to be bad, rather unimaginative gender-stereotyping in my opinion but that is beside the point, the CH perfume is lovely and it comes in a high-heeled shoe shaped bottle. There is also a Jo Malone wannabe in the range, Sea Salt and Neroli . M & S sell a pack of all the various testers for £5 which is fantastic value. I think this would make a nice little gift for a teenage girl.

Perfume is one of things that is so easy to get wrong and is is an expensive mistake if you end up with a £75 bottle of something that you no longer like after a couple of days. I have re-sold so many used-twice bottles on eBay over the years. Now I generally buy Chanel body sprays, which are around £30, because they are less strong than even the EDTs and are not headache inducing. They last for ages too as you only need to spray a tiny amount. If I am considering a new fragrance I will usually buy a sample on eBay and wear it for a couple of weeks or so before committing to a fully sized bottle but, most days, I don’t bother with perfume anymore.

While in Marks and Spencer I also bought a small make up bag for my handbag, a bargain at £6, and a delicious bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich!  

Thank you for reading,

Samantha

Cover Photo by Laura Chouette on Unsplash

Ugh, Christmas already??

On By samanthaIn SHOPPINGLeave a comment

Ok, admittedly rather a Scrooge-like title for this post but, let’s face it, Christmas is a lot of work, not to mention a lot of expense. Maybe your household is different but, I think it is fair to say, in many families the bulk of the to-do list falls on the woman. I am writing this with a month to go but already I am conscious that I need to choose gifts for friends who live overseas and post them. Last year I bought a friend in Australia a beautiful pale grey bag from White Stuff. Unbeknownst to me, a couple of days after I posted it, my friend moved house. She never even set eyes on that bag but I hope her former landlady enjoys using it.

Christmas becomes a little easier, but perhaps less fun, once the children become teenagers. Two of my children have birthdays in early January by which time I have usually run out of gift-giving steam. Now, I still fill a stocking (well actually a pillowcase) for each of them but they are happy with cold hard cash as a main gift. A tip to anyone considering buying a teenager a gift set of some sort, especially toiletries – don’t! They would rather have five pounds cash than a fifteen pound box of smellies that they will never use. If the idea of giving money just doesn’t feel right to you then perhaps compromise and give them a voucher, maybe ASOS who stock hundreds of different fashion brands and seem to have a permanent sale on. My youngest son would probably choose a simple white T shirt like this one from The North Face,

If you really want to give a physical gift then, for girls, I don’t think you can go far wrong with Oliver Bonas who sell beautiful accessories starting at around £15. This pretty star bracelet is simple yet elegant.

I am a sucker for a cuddly toy so, for younger children, I would probably buy a cuddly Christmas reindeer. In fact my youngest son has quite a collection of these from years past and I was very sad when he was obviously too old for soft toys. This little chap from John Lewis is very reasonably priced at £15 and is good for cuddles all year round because reindeer aren’t just for Christmas!

I enjoy choosing gifts for my friends and sometimes do adopt the “one for you, one for me” approach when I find something I really like. I usually spend around £30-£40 on these gifts. I do have rather a repetitive repertoire I must admit, silver earrings, nice make-up bags, a leather purse or card-holder, silver keyring. Something like this cute mouse keyring from Alessi or this beautiful leather purse from Sage Brown which looks like you’ve been shopping at Bottega Veneta.

My parents are n their late eighties and really don’t need much but this year I have bought them new pyjamas and dressing gowns, predictably from Marks and Spencer. I took a bit of time choosing carefully because my parents, sadly, are both very frail and can easily trip when going down the stairs if the pyjama hems are too wide or the leg too long. My mum has osteoporosis and has shrunk considerably during the past five years, so much so that I now buy the cropped leg length for her.

As for my husband, well he isn’t really worried about receiving gifts as long as everyone else is happy. This year I have bought him a much-needed new coat from Crew Clothing. They had a 20% off event which was very helpful.

Our first Christmas card arrived today, as always it is from my eighty-eight year old aunt who writes them during August. She send over two hundred and fifty, many to people she hasn’t seen for thirty years. To be honest, I suspect may of the intended recipients may have moved or even died years go as she hardly receives any in return but I am too polite to suggest this to her. She enjoys her yearly ritual of sitting out in her garden during the height of summer preparing for December! Receiving this fist card always sends me into a bit of a panic so I had better get my address book out and start writing some of my own.

Thanks for reading.

Samantha