Forget about the big things. You can keep the necessities. Don't tell us about the must-haves. Alexandra Fraser takes a look at a few little luxuries which, in a world too full of strife and woe, will help ease your way through life with a smile on your face.
As the Christmas adverts hit TV last weekend, I heard my boyfriend’s brother remark that ‘there are 12 days of Christmas and none of them are in November’.
I really hope he doesn’t read this.
Ho Ho Chococo (sorry)
The only complaint I’ve heard about these chocolates is that one can’t get them out of the boxes fast enough to satiate one’s craving for Christmas-themed confectionary. As the three tiered box is joyously referred to as a ‘cascade’, may I suggest forgoing formalities and simply pouring them down one’s gullet?
Chococo’s Christmas Selection Box, Cascade of 50 fresh Christmas Chocolates, for £45, www.chococo.co.uk.
Out, damned spot!
The National Theatre Gift Shop is a modern marvel, a treasure trove of things you would never dream that you could ever need (probably because, quite frankly, you don’t). On the other hand, I think this would make a great secret Santa present for your resident office thespian. We’ll be keeping ours next to the Country Life office cake shelf, accessible from my desk via a three-foot-deep grove that has somehow been worn into the floor over the last few months.
Lady Macbeth’s Hand Sanitiser for £8 from the National Theatre Bookshop, find it online at shop.nationaltheatre.org.uk.
I spy with my gilded eye
Don’t you hate it when you can’t see your yacht from your luxury hotel room in Saint Tropez / count all of your cars from your castle tower / see the revolutionaries, brandishing pitchforks, intent on breaking down your gates? Problem solved.
It even comes with a carrying strap for your butler’s convenience.
Swarovski Optik CL Companion NOMAD for £2,070, uk.swarovskioptik.com.
This. This is what I meant by treasure trove.
Just when you were putting down the chopsticks and swapping Sticks’n’Sushi for Steak&Co, The National Theatre find a way to work raw fish seamlessly back into Christmas and may I say, bravo.
This is so completely and utterly random that I’ve had no other choice than to fall completely and utterly in love with it. Truly. I don’t ask for an explanation. It shouldn’t exist, in a reasonable world it wouldn’t exist, my boss wishes it didn’t exist but it does and for that, I will be forever grateful.
Sushi Christmas Decoration for £16, shop.nationaltheatre.org.uk.
This little light of mine (which I will never own)
I can promise you, this will light any candle. Any candle you want lit, this will light it. Pinky promise.
The Wand brushed-gold candle lighter, £170, find at www.st-dupont.com.
If you purchased our entire shopping list this week, you would have spent £2,309 and either a) have very eclectic taste or b) more money than sense. Actually, both. Definitely both.
The utterly royal shopping list, from beautiful winter flowers to hand-made suits that defy disposable culture
For one week only we've transformed our regular utterly inessential shopping list into an utterly royal shopping list, to coincide
The utterly inessential shopping list: Gin, beauty, beer and even Lego…the advent calendars have arrived
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The utterly inessential shopping list: A gold Ferrari, your very own private island and a stunning timepiece to watch
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The utterly inessential shopping list: Serenity for the stressed in the city, terrific tweed and a loafer to take you full speed ahead
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The absolutely inessential, utterly indulgent and entirely marvellous weekend shopping list
Check in weekly to see the latest additions to our list – to look at, laugh at and to (occasionally) treat
Bicester Village: A delicate mixture of luxury shopping, teeming crowds and stunning British countryside
Alexandra Fraser visits ‘the Bond Street of Oxfordshire’ and their delectable new Café Wolseley, just in time for the Christmas
