Our massive holiday gift guide, and tips for a less stressful Christmas
Life and Art from FT Weekend
Forhecz Topher
4.6 • 601 Ratings
🗓️ 6 December 2024
⏱️ 35 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
December is here, and we’re here to help you sort your holiday shopping. Need to make a last-minute gift feel thoughtful? Searching for something for your dad? Want to give a cheap gift a glow-up? Hoping to also actually enjoy December? Lilah has invited two experts onto the show: HTSI’s deputy editor Louis Wise and FT Magazine’s Food & Drink editor Harriet Fitch Little, the brains behind the FT’s two annual holiday gift guides. Please enjoy our most chaotic episode to date.
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As you know, the show is ending in early January – we’re still collecting your cultural questions. We have access to critics, reporters, artists and more – and Lilah is determined to find you the most interesting answers she can. What’s rolling around in your head? How can we help? Email her at [email protected] or send her a message on Instagram @lilahrap.
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Links (all FT links get you past the paywall):
– The FT Magazine’s gift guide, in price order, is here. We also love their advent calendar, with tips for every day of December
– HTSI’s holiday gift guide highlights: here is Louis’ Christmas buys for stylish guys (which includes the Prada jumprope), HTSI editor Jo Ellison’s guide for fashion lovers, Drinks columnist Alice Lascelles’ for booze lovers and Laila Gohar’s for party hosts
– The HTSI guide to black hoodies for men
– Harriet’s cheese interview (you cut the cheese in the shape of the cheese!)
– Vox’s article on buying the perfect gift is here
– Harriet is on Instagram @huffffle. Louis is @louisquinze
Read a transcript of this episode on FT.com
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopolis and this is our Friday chat show. |
| 0:08.7 | We are staunchly in December, which means the festive season is here. And what a joy it is. |
| 0:13.9 | Couples are walking their Christmas trees home, families are stringing lights in the windows. |
| 0:18.4 | And according to the internet, if you haven't started Christmas shopping yet, you're late. December is that magical month that some years can feel sweet and |
| 0:26.4 | wonderful and some years can just feel stressful. For me, this year, the stress is starting to |
| 0:31.8 | mount. So I've invited in the big guns. These are two of my colleagues behind the two exceptional |
| 0:37.2 | gift guides that we put out every year, |
| 0:39.4 | and they are here to tell us how to actually enjoy getting ready for the holidays and be present for the season, |
| 0:44.8 | and also give us some ideas for gifts. Let's get into it. I'm Lila in New York, and yes, my father did give me the Barbara Streisand |
| 0:52.3 | memoir for Christmas last year, and yes, I did just give it away Barbara Streisand memoir for Christmas last year. |
| 0:55.7 | And yes, I did just give it away. |
| 1:01.7 | Joining me from London, rumor has it, he skipped into the studio on a $1,400 Prada jump rope. |
| 1:06.7 | It's the deputy editor of our luxury magazine, HTSI, the great Louis Wise. |
| 1:07.8 | Hi, Louis. Welcome. |
| 1:08.7 | Hi, Lila. |
| 1:12.2 | I loved that jump rope, who knew it existed. |
| 1:15.8 | I'm obsessed with that jump rope, although I got a message from Robert Armstrong, |
| 1:21.8 | a wonderful colleague with the words, proud of jump rope, bad. |
| 1:28.5 | So it has certainly caused some ripples, but that was the aim, to be honest. |
| 1:29.7 | Yeah, that's good. |
| 1:32.1 | Well, proud of jump rope, good as far as I'm concerned. |
| 1:39.0 | Also in London, she recently, on our behalf, asked two cheese mongers, the party etiquette for how to cut into a cheese. |
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