The Independent Store Gift Guide: 50 For £50 & Under
A curated list of 50 lovely, lovely things from small independent stores, all of which are Christmas gifting perfect. And all under fifty quid, too.
Shopping for Christmas gifts can be quite overwhelming, it’s true. And not only overwhelming but also outrageously expensive if you’ve got a large extended family who like to exchange presents. Luckily for Joe and I, our families decided some years ago that they didn’t, mostly due to the fact that we both have multiple siblings all with multiple children meaning that we’d be wrapping for at least a month and possibly more. Just thinking about how many times I would lose the end of the sellotape and have to scratch it furiously with my nails to rediscover during a gift wrapping session of that magnitude is enough to send me into a spiral of stress. Our solution to this family extensiveness is to buy for the children only and then draw straws to buy for one person alone with a maximum budget of £50. And it works, quite nicely really.
Joe’s birthday is annoyingly close to Christmas (he has celebrated just this last week) so it’s always impossible to know what to buy him. For years and years, we didn’t buy each other presents at Christmas at all, choosing instead to spend what money we had on adding to the massive pile of plastic owned by our children, including but not limited to, Hama Beads (actual things of hell), Power Rangers and Dora The Explorer merchandise. The year Ella got a talking Backpack was one of her best although in fairness to Dora, one of her redeeming features was that Ella was able to easilyconverse in restaurants when we went on holiday to Spain. My children were never the faintest bit interested in Lego, a fact that was poorly communicated in that it was standard birthday party fare from invitees but they WERE interested in whacking the shit out of each other with Star Wars light sabres at every given opportunity. Those light sabres were omnipresent; all you’d need to do is tap the button in error with a touch as light as a feather and they would immediately emit wailing indefinitely due to the buttons instantly becoming unworkable (if I had a pound for every time that I threw those bastard things in the bin to be retrieved by the children, I’d be a rich woman). Fast forward to present day and their gift requests are much less plastic and far more Flannels, godammit.
But back to budgets and although I have far less presents to buy this year, I am as ever always keen to buy things that are well considered and personal to the recipient. I’ve been doing Gift Guides that are focused on independent stores rather than High Street for nine years now and I am always so excited to collate them - there are so many beautiful carefully curated online stores that it’s hard to choose which ones to include. Last week, I presented you with my favourite buys for £30 and under for this Christmas gifting period, all from independent stores and makers, voila here:
This week, I’ve upped the budget to a whopping £50 and have curated a list of 50 independents who can provide you with a glorious array of goods to fit this spending sector PERFECTLY.
So what is the benefit of combining the High Street with shopping smaller this Christmas? As I said last week, by checking out these smaller sellers and independent stores, you are supporting and promoting these businesses and their products which is so very important to the continuation of these individual brands.
But most of all, if you find a small business on these guides that you love, then PLEASE SHARE them on your social channels. Every website click for these small independent brands is a possible sale. Happy shopping!
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This is a great list Lisa! Thanks so much. Very helpful.
This is great, Lisa! The London fam is not coming to Italy for Christmas this year, although mosst of them are coming at some point between December and January. Rather than weighing down their luggage with all their Christmas presents, I've been looking for things to find them in the UK, and lots of these are just perfect - including the boy!