The Late-Romantic dot com Gift Guide – Your In-Laws

More specifically, this guide is for the in-laws who have everything. It isn’t specific to in-laws: it can be your own parents or your boss or anybody to whom you do not want to gift anything too personal, anything too intense, or anything too jokey. You want to get them something nice (commensurate with your budget, of course), but you want to make sure it keeps your relationship easy and keep everyone smiling over the time you’re spending together.

My suggestions:

• Use Yumbles. This website is like Etsy for food, so you might pay a little over the odds for your smoked meat or your cocktail set, but you’re guaranteed an artisanal product that’s in the Christmas spirit, and it will be made by an artisanal provider so there’s a little conversation to be had from whatever you pick up here.
• A novelty board game. Let’s be real, this is something that’s only going to be used once, so don’t stress about it. They probably don’t play a lot of board games so don’t worry too much about it coming highly recommended by lovers of tabletop gaming – focus instead on it pertaining to the interests of your family. Nature walkers? Get Wingspan. Former disco dancers? Get Top of the Pops. Film buffs? Apparently there’s a Rear Window board game that works a bit like Cluedo. Children in the family? Try Horrible Histories. This is simply a way to engage your family in some quality time, so even if it’s your town’s local monopoly then you should be on to a winner.
• Something comfy. A nice dressing gown, cosy slippers, a novelty sweater – they almost certainly have whatever you’re going to give them, but they can keep it in the house and be glad of you when they get out of the bath and pull on those furry slippers.
• Something to ease the stress on the big day. Your family probably won’t let you cook the turkey and sprouts, but maybe they’ll let you bring prepared veg from Mark’s or sort the mince pies, Quality Street and Bombay mix spread so that whoever is cooking doesn’t need to worry about missing something in the big shop and can spend more time with the family on the day itself.
• THE BOOK: The Secret Lives of Colour. This is a nice, innocuous factual book that will appeal to a wide array of interests and can be dipped into without being read cover-to-cover. It will also look pretty on a shelf if it never gets cracked. I think this is a lovely book for somebody you don’t know too well – informative, not especially political, aesthetic… what else could you want?