Holiday Gift Guide 2025 / Thoughtful Gifts for Those You Love
Perfume, cashmere, and objets d’art – our edit of the most beautiful, meaningful gifts to give (and to keep).
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The clocks went back this past Sunday, and all anyone can talk about is how dark it’s become. It is dark, and it will take some adjusting. After all, it’s that season again – the one Hemingway said made you sad without knowing why.
At the Sunday market a quiet elderly man sold us vegan Scotch eggs in the rain, the autumn rain that makes everything gleam, and some had beets at their centres, others tofu – we couldn’t say which we’d chosen. Later The Girlfriend, finally, which didn’t live up to the hype, though something pulled us through to the ending, that overwrought ending we didn’t care for at all. The book’s ending was better, they say. More satisfying.
P has been down with the flu for the past few days, and it’s been three weeks today since we moved into our new place – three weeks! – this neighbourhood we love already, where we’ve claimed (how quickly we claim things) our favourite seat by the fire in the pub, our pub now. Where the flames shift and the dark presses against the windows and we are, for the moment, inside.
It’s been nearly a year since my last gift guide – twelve quiet months of seasons folding into one another until, almost suddenly, the holidays return. I hadn’t planned to make another quite so soon, but inspiration – like light through a foggy window – arrives on its own terms.
This one began as a simple list for myself: things I loved, things I might give, small tokens that felt like thoughtfulness made tangible. Perfume for memory. Cashmere for warmth. A candle for the hush of late evening. Each piece, in its own way, a reminder that beauty, when chosen with care, can feel like love made visible.
Each thing, a way of saying: I thought of you.