Small businesses I love this Christmas

My love of Christmas paired with the fact that I always like to be super organised for everything means I’m always ahead of the game when it comes to our Christmas shopping, and now more than ever before, I understand how important it is to ‘shop small’ and support my fellow small business friends. Since starting Festive Fingerprints I have made the most incredible small business discoveries and have been storing them up in my head ready for the perfect opportunity. This year, knowing (hoping!) that I’m likely to have my hands full when winter rolls around, I have been collecting bits and pieces throughout the year.

As a small business owner, there is little that brings more joy than hearing that *ping* on your phone notifying you that someone has placed an order for something you have created, and this year I made a deal with myself to buy as many of our gifts from small independents as possible, and pass on that feeling of joy. As far as buying for Thomas and Willow are concerned it’s still pretty easy to do, as they are so little and haven’t got the age where a list is produced - although I am sure that time will come!

My reason for wanting to shop small is three-fold; not only are the products themselves simply beautiful, but it’s also the businesses behind the brands that I have fallen in love with. Finding out more about the story behind how these brands started life is so inspiring to me, and it’s also lovely to be able to find out more about how the products are made and know when choices have been made in an ethically or sustainable way. The final reason is the people themselves behind the brands, I have absolutely loved getting to know the faces behind the businesses that I have been admiring for all this time. Since starting Festive Fingerprints I have found the most incredibly welcoming and, supportive community on Instagram, most of which are fellow small business owners, who understand the highs and lows that come with doing what we do. Being able to show my support in return brings me so much pleasure, so sharing the gifts I have bought for our children this year seemed like the perfect way to show my appreciation to them, and show you some amazing small business alternatives you could have wrapped beautifully under your tree this Christmas.

So here goes, without further ado, here are some of the gorgeous gifts earmarked for a Christmas Eve delivery to our house.

For Thomas (he’s 4 in case you are wondering!) we have chosen;

An Oaky Dokie magnifying glass from Freckle Studio. I have loved and lauded about their beautiful wooden toys since starting Festive Fingerprints, so this was possibly one of the very first items on my list. If you’ve not checked them out please do, they are a Welsh business set up by two friends and their Instagram feed is stunning.

Growing up, Father Christmas was quite a traditionalist in our house, and so this year he’s bringing Thomas some ‘proper’ toys courtesy of Benjamin Pollock’s Toyshop. There is a spinning top, dominos, a slinky, noughts and crosses, a kaleidoscope, and of course a yoyo. They have a gorgeous little set that comes in a beautiful gift box which is just the perfect stocking filler.

As most of you will know if you’ve been following us in my stories, Thomas is a tad farming obsessed, although we are attempting to encourage him to diversify! He currently has a Brachiosaurus from Dino Dino housed in his combine shed that he feeds silage to each morning (luckily Brachiosaurus’ are herbivores, otherwise we may have had a rather unhappy dinosaur in our midst…). So included in his stocking this year are some beautiful Ostheimer wooden animals from Conscious Craft, I’ve stayed away from farm animals and gone for some woodland creatures and brown bears. Foxes are Thomas’s most favourite animal, after cows of course, so I know he will love them.

Fable Heart and Polar Post are the most magical of all the small businesses I have found and will be a permanent fixture in our Christmas’s forevermore. This year Thomas has the most stunning green velvet crown fit for a Christmas King, and Willow a beautiful red wand to wave away those pesky Brussel sprouts.

Willow, two, is pretty farm obsessed as well so we thought it would be nice for her, well them both really, to have a different set up to play with, so we have bought this gorgeous Olliella wooden dolls house from West Stanton, a really beautiful independent shop full of lovely things for little people. I also nabbed this colouring-in book for the bath from them, as it combines two of her favourite things; water and colouring in. 

I couldn’t resist the next present, the most beautiful set of handprinted wooden ladybirds from The Wood Cove. Each ladybird is numbered 1-10 by the dots on their backs. Willow loves to count, well more so she loves to recite the numbers, I’m not sure she’s quite grasped the art of counting in order just yet! I just know she is going to adore carrying her new friends around in their little drawstring bag. We have also got her a couple Maileg Christmas mice and some furniture to go inside from One Hundred Toys and Eva & Rose. Her first introduction (and mine) to Maileg was on her birthday when we bought her a bunny and I know that they will become a firm favourite in our family.

They both have a Farmer Christmas Activity book, if you’ve not come across the Farmer Christmas books yet, please do look them up. We have probably read the first one approximately 200 hundred times, Christmas or no Christmas it’s top of Thomas’s list for a bedtime story.

Finally, no Christmas stocking would be complete without chocolate would it? So this year we have PlayinChoc ToyChoc boxes to start the day’s sugar rush off in style. They are the coolest little cubes containing age-appropriate chocolate of course, the angelic variety without the refined sugars, and a really cute Christmas toy to make.

I had planned to post this for small business Saturday but in light of where we all find ourselves now I thought it might be nice to bring it forward in case it leads to some wonderful new small business discoveries of your own.