Unboxed, sniffed and sampled: the making of our ultimate Christmas gift guide

6 days ago 26

It began in the stifling heat of summer, when the Filter team sat down to plan our big Christmas gift guide. One idea quickly rose to the surface: we didn’t just want to trawl online for the best, most original, affordable presents around. We wanted to smell the products, taste them, unbox and inspect them, and pour them over ice into a tumbler.

We started to fill out our list. We brainstormed ideas, researched them to find the ultimate iteration of that product, and borrowed samples (returning or donating them when we’d finished). We approached favourite retailers and shops for their new collections, and we attended Christmas press shows in our shorts and sandals to sample things in the flesh. The office slowly filled up with boxes, and the musical biscuit tin grew a bit wearing, though its contents were delicious.

We chanced upon gift ideas: a summer holiday in Suffolk led to the discovery of a bracing unisex scent, Norfolk Natural Living’s Coastal Walks. And we included one or two beloved favourites, the things we use regularly ourselves and buy for our own loved ones (Aesop’s Eleos hand cream, I’m looking at you).

Luckily, we had a team of experts to help, too: babies (and their parents), kids, teens, relatives and all manner of experts in their fields, from gardeners to foodies, tried and tested things for us. We also rounded up some of our most popular products, whether alcohol, kitchen kit, food or fashion, that had already been tried and rated by our own professional testers.

We kept alive to trends: the vogue for pistachio is showing no signs of slowing, so we featured a box of pistachio truffles; tweens and teens told us the on-trend products they wanted, from Sol de Janeiro shower gel and Owala water bottles to claw clips; and we showcased everyone’s love of Guinness with a T-shirt and a Nitrosurge.

Cleaner, smarter, fatter

These tests didn’t just inform our picks – they had unintended consequences: my neighbourhood had never looked cleaner after I’d put a litter picker, made from ocean plastic waste, to the test. We visited museum shops to see their collections and become more cultured in the process: the National Portrait Gallery’s Cecil Beaton exhibition, and the V&A’s Marie Antoinette were personal favourites. And we put on a little weight in the name of rigorous food sampling. “I ate half a jar of chilli jam peanut butter in one sitting,” says the Filter’s deputy editor, Monica Horridge, “and found myself having to fit additional meals into the day so I could test out as many things as possible in the Lakeland Only Pan.”

Many things didn’t make the cut. A matcha whisk was rejected by our in-house matcha lover for not being up to scratch; some subpar wax melts were so overpowering they made one of our reviewer’s children cry; and a pack of pistachio biscuits were rejected for not being pistachio-y enough.

But the result has been our ultimate, thoroughly comprehensive gift guide: 305 presents, from stocking fillers to grooming products, kitchenware to toys, condiments to garden tools. Merry Christmas!

This week’s picks

Editor’s pick

Sat Xmas cover with Annalisa, Meera, Grace, Sali, Yotam

Want to know which Uno game Yotam Ottolenghi will be playing this Christmas, what shapewear Grace Dent will be wearing throughout party season, and which gorgeous platter Meera Sodha serves her crisps on?

This year’s Saturday magazine gift guide reveals the contents of all the columnists’ Christmas lists, with contributions from Jess Cartner-Morley, Sali Hughes, Alice Vincent, Tim Dowling, Gynelle Leon and Annalisa Barbieri.

Monica Horridge
Deputy editor, the Filter

In case you missed it …

an embroidery one, a stationery one and a wooden Christmas tree-shaped one

As we’ve been planning Christmas for months now (munching on our first mince pies back in August), it’s a little confusing to think that December hasn’t even started yet. But it’s finally approaching, and now is your last chance to pick up an Advent calendar – whether you’re after an expert-approved beauty calendar or something a little more unusual. Instant mash calendar, anyone?