The 18 best Christmas ornaments to give as gifts
There is nothing like marking the years with the baubles you hang on the tree every Christmas, especially the ones that have been lovingly collected over decades. Whether you’re treating yourself to a new ornament for the tree this year, or looking for something special to give to friends or family as future keepsakes, here’s 18 present-worthy baubles to bring a distinctive finishing touch to yuletide decorations.
Nutcracker Hare
£35, Alice Mary Lynch
Magic runs through textile artist and designer Alice Mary Lynch’s veins – her hand-painted wooden decorations, drawing on folkloric patterns and wonderland motifs, come to animated life when hanging on a tree, from a doorknob or on a wall hook. A regular collaborator with Harrods and Fortnum & Mason – her career first started in fashion design, working with the likes of John Galliano, Sonia Rykiel and Dior – Lynch’s own collection of decorations, including dancing lions, leaping foxes, nutcracker hares and Pierrot cats, bring a sense of everlasting fairytale whimsy to Christmas.
Gingerbread house decoration
£11.50, Ian Snow
This small, ethical independent offers exquisite Zardouzi-embroidered and beaded decorations – made by a small family business in India – in an array of motifs, from cherries, flower fairies and woodland animals to butterflies, bunnies and dachshunds (from £10). Fairtrade and free from virgin plastic, they are decorated with intricate metal embroidery and glass beads rather than glitter and sequins, and also arrive in beautifully printed cotton fabric bags.
Michaela hanging angel
£25, Villa Bologna
With a shop in Notting Hill, Villa Bologna sells charming ceramic homewares handcrafted and painted in an 100-year-old pottery in Malta. Its ceramic tree decorations include cheerful striped baubles and hanging angels and robins.
Cocktail decoration
£13.95, Scribble & Daub
Illustrator Caroline Kent has created a collection of high quality card decorations that could double as gift tags or place settings for the table. From an original dip pen and ink illustration, each one is then letterpress-printed on a vintage Heidelberg press in Kent’s family-run East Sussex workshop, hand painted in bright candy colours inspired by Andy Warhol’s favourite palette from the 1950s, and strung with Swiss satin ribbon.
Hand-marbled bauble
£12, Toast
Toast’s Christmas collection includes hand-marbled or painted papier mâché baubles, made using recycled newspaper by small Fairtrade artisan co-operatives in India, Nepal and Syria. Other ornaments include hammered metal stars, recycled glass droplets and garlands of pleated paper stars or chains.
Wally Dog wooden decoration
£6.25, Elizabeth Harbour
Kent-based illustrator Elizabeth Harbour’s olde English decoration designs are reassuringly nostalgic, from a traditional Victorian Father Christmas to tobogganing children, snowmen and a partridge in a pear tree. Each one started as hand-drawn and painted artwork (Harbour’s husband Llewellyn Thomas, a professional artist, also lends a helping hand), then printed on sustainable birch plywood. With more than two hundred designs, there’s one to suit the personality of every friend and family member.
Tin decoration Crowned Dove
Cumbrian-based mother and daughter artists Denise and Samantha Allan founded The Shop Floor Project in 2006. For Christmas, they work with Mexican craftsmen using traditional hojalata tinwork techniques to bring their sketches of angels, cherubs, kings, queens, crabs, mermaids, seahorses and shooting stars to life. Inspired by characters seen in early English country church frescoes and antique folk-art toys, these are to be collected and treasured for generations to come, all the while lending some extra twinkle to the tree.
Seahorse decorations
£72 for a set of four (down from £90), Designers Guild
Parisian artist Nathalie Lété brings her theatrical, slightly bonkers spirit to a neat but chic collection of hand-blown, hand-painted glass decorations at Designers Guild; alongside these playful sea creatures, there are gnomes, dogs and toadstools.
Fine bone china alphabet bauble
£75, Feldspar
Feldspar’s bright white fine bone china baubles, handmade in the Devon workshop of founders Jeremy and Cath Brown, can be personalised with a hand-painted letter (in a choice of cobalt blue, geranium red or khaki green), or come with simple hand-painted stripes. If you’re in London, be sure to visit the Feldspar pop-up at the Corninthia Hotel (until 5th January).
Miami bauble
£50, Gather Glass
For something merry and bright, glassmaker Phoebe Stubbs’ numbered, limited-edition Miami baubles are designed and hand-blown at her south London studio in joyful candy-bright shades such as bubblegum, mandarin, poolside and cherry red. Each one comes with a colourful gift box, and £10 from every bauble purchase goes to the Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity.
Party Horse felted wool decoration
£14, Daylesford
Among dinky beaded ornamental versions of Daylesford’s bottles of sparkling wine and cocktails, there is a charming pair of felted mice celebrating the farmers and gardeners who work at the estate. Country dwellers might also enjoy a host of farmyard characters, including woolly sheep, sleepy donkeys and this dancing horse. Many have been made in India by artisans working with the Lady Bamford Charitable Trust.
Felt lobster
£35, Nina Campbell
Interior design doyenne Nina Campbell’s store (now based on London’s Pimlico Road) has always been a wondrous source for magical decorations. This year, she has collaborated with American designers Madcap Cottage on a collection of colourful felted decorations including this lobster, plus hand-painted baubles and delicate painted eggs.
Tiffany Pooch ornament
£16, Kit Kemp Shop
Renowned for her sense of colour and pattern, hotelier Kit Kemp names her sweetly painted ceramic animal ornaments (a collaboration with Spode pottery) after her own family and pets. Each ornament is decorated in her signature zigzags, flowers and stripes, lending a playful touch to any tree, mantel or bookshelf.
Whole Fig glass ornament
£18, Choosing Keeping
Julia Jeuvell, owner of the eclectic stationery store Choosing Keeping in Covent Garden, seeks out extraordinary baubles from small European towns famous for making Christmas ornaments, including the German town of Lauscha (where it’s said the tradition of the glass bauble was born in the 1800s). Some are rather eccentric, some a little scary, and others charming.
Custard Cream biscuit felted decoration
£10, Sew Your Soul
Felt artist Lucy Sparrow has made a big splash this festive season with a collaboration with Diptyque, adorning its Bond Street store with a festive delicatessen of champagne bottles, Christmas puddings and more, but she also creates her own collections of kitschy cute decorations in themes such as holiday vegetables, seafood, classic chocolate bars and nostalgic foodstuffs.
Liberty fabric bauble
£15, Coco & Wolf
For the Liberty fabric fan, Coco & Wolf has created a collection of hanging bows, padded stars and fun fabric-strip pom-poms in Tana Lawn printed cottons left over from making the brand’s mainline bedding, table linens and homeware accessory collections.
Hand-blown glass candy cane decorations
£156 for a set of four, Abask
For something extra special, Abask offers sets of hand-blown, hand-painted glass ornaments, from jungle animals to intricate tropical flowers and glass mushrooms, in vibrant colours and glittering flourishes, all made by a family-run workshop in Poland, one of the last in Europe still blowing and painting glass tree decorations by hand.
Dalmatian embroidered decoration
£29, Holly & Co
Holly & Co is a fantastic one-stop shop for British independent designers: there’s an abundance of personalised options, from hand-painted baubles to wooden pet portraits, as well as beaded, embroidered depictions of pop stars, from David Bowie to Taylor Swift, and plenty of characterful dogs.
