Yes, yes, yes - the dreaded C word again. I'm sure if you're trying to be organised and have a horror of December shopping, you'll be getting presents bought now. The less organised of you will be leaving it a bit last minute. And in the name of helping out the second of those two groups of people, we have been madly testing something that might appeal.A hamper.
From Interflora.
Yes, Interflora now deliver gifts as well as flowers and have recently launched their Christmas Gifts section. There are some eye popping hampers there but we got to try something slightly smaller - our hamper was appropriately named Seasons Greetings.This can be delivered next day so it's perfect for the leave-it-until-the-last-minute brigade.
The box turned up and it looks a lot smaller than I imagined a £50 hamper would. There was a nice range of products included - wine, biscuits, crisps, cake, mince pie, chocolates, jam, chutney etc. The reason for the small box soon became apparent - everything, apart from the full sized bottle of wine and the pack of chocolate covered brownies (which are actually biscuits!), seems to be smaller than you'd expect. The jam and the chutney jars are around a quarter of the size of standard jar, there are only 3 mince pies in the pack, and a 125g box of chocolates does NOT go far in this house, let me tell you.
We have been personfully testing as many of the different products over the past few days as we can. The chocolate covered brownies were the biggest hit. I liked the mini ciabattas (which are little biscuits) and the crisps and shortbread were as nice as you would expect. There wasn't anything we've disliked. There just wasn't a lot of it.
Therein lies my problem with it. As value for money, I feel it could be a lot better. You could buy full sized packs of similar quality products in the supermarket for about half the price. Yes, the basket is nice - but it can't be that much. This is definitely a product of convenience rather than value. Well, to me anyway. You might feel differently about that, especially if it means you don't have to dash round shops in December, you don't have to do the wrapping, and you don't have to deliver it to the intended recipients. It would suit a couple rather than a family. That, or you're to expect the chocolate to disappear in a flash, she typed, looking pointedly at small children and husband.
Would you send a hamper for Christmas?
(Interflora sent me a Seasons Greetings hamper to try. All opinions are my own)