What Survives the Post: 10 Nordic Gifts to Send Abroad
Late October is when parcels for abroad get packed. Ten Nordic pieces that are flat, light or unbreakable, and worth opening at the other end.
Read More →The List Starts Now: 10 Nordic Gifts Worth Buying Early
The Nordic gift list does not start in December. It starts in the second week of November, while the shops are still calm and the blue teapot you had in mind is still the blue teapot and not a note saying sold out. Buying early has little to do with being organised. It is about choosing the thing you actually meant, in the colour you meant, rather than whatever is left on the shelf in three weeks.
So here are ten to put on the list now: a wool blanket, a teapot, a board for someone who cooks, three pieces of glass, a mug for the person in the family who has always preferred the gloomy characters. Nothing novelty, nothing with batteries, nothing that gets passed on in March. All ten are in stock in the UK, Germany, Norway and Denmark, and all ten are worth comparing across the shops on ScandiDeals before you order.
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1. Røros Tweed Fri – The Blanket Nobody Returns
A throw covers your knees. This covers a person. The Røros Tweed Fri blanket is 150 by 200 centimetres, woven in wide bands of charcoal and pale grey that change weave as they change colour, so the surface reads as texture rather than stripe. Wool holds warmth without weight, and at this size it works on a bed in a cold room as well as over a sofa. It is the kind of present still in use in ten winters, which is the only test that matters.
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2. Kosta Boda Snowball – Light Inside The Snow
Three clear glass holders in three sizes, each pitted and pushed about like a ball of packed snow. Drop in a tealight and the whole object lights from within, the rough glass scattering it so you get a glow rather than a flame in a jar. Stood together on a windowsill, the three sizes do the work of an arrangement. The Kosta Boda Snowball holders come as a set of three, which also makes them easy to split between two people.
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3. Rörstrand Ostindia – Blue And White, Still Printed
Ostindia has been on Swedish tables long enough that most people recognise it before they can name it: cobalt flowers and sprigs scattered over white, a thin rust line at the rim, a cluster of berries for the lid knob. The Rörstrand Ostindia teapot holds 1.2 litres, which is four decent cups, and it arrives gift-wrapped. Give it to the person who has poured tea from a chipped pot for three years and will never replace it themselves.
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4. Fritz Hansen Skagerak – End Grain, Teak, Heavy
This is the board for someone who cooks properly. The Skagerak cutting board in teak is 56 by 35 centimetres of end grain: blocks stood on end so the knife parts the fibres instead of cutting across them, which is kinder to the edge and to the board. A channel runs along one face for juices, and a hand-hold is cut into the side so you can lift it off the counter. Oil it twice a year and it will outlast the kitchen.
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5. Skandinavisk Øy – Smoke-Blue Glass, Wooden Lid
The safe gift for a host, provided the scent is not aimed at one particular taste. Skandinavisk Øy is 200 grams of wax in a smoke-blue glass with a pale wooden lid, and the lid earns more than it looks: it keeps dust off the wax between evenings and leaves a glass worth keeping for matches or pencils when the candle is done. Take it to the flat where you keep being fed, or add it to something larger.
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6. Iittala Essence – A Pair, Not A Set
The most useful wine glass is the one nobody is frightened of. The Iittala Essence white wine glasses come in a pair: a straight-sided bowl drawn in slightly at the rim, on a long clear stem that keeps a warm hand off cold wine. They are thin enough to feel like proper glass and plain enough to stand beside whatever is already in the cupboard. Two is also the better gift. A set of six reads as a replacement; a pair reads as a present.
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7. Moomin Arabia Groke – For The One Who Likes The Cold
Arabia's Moomin mugs are printed with Tove Jansson's own drawings, and the Groke is the one for November. She is drawn here in grey and white against deep blue, with a white handle and a white interior, holding her small lantern. The Groke mug is for the person in the family who always preferred the melancholy characters to the cheerful ones. Mugs in this series come and go, which is the argument for buying one the week you see it.
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8. Normann Copenhagen Salon – Cane Base, Rust Rim
A round tray, 40 centimetres across, with a rust-red rim standing up around a woven cane base and two notches cut through the rim so your fingers go under it. The cane keeps the weight down and stops the thing reading as furniture. The Salon tray suits someone who has just moved: it turns any flat surface into a place where a pot, two cups and a candle belong together rather than drift apart.
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9. Stelton Tabi – A Flask That Looks Like A Bottle
Most insulated bottles look like equipment. The Stelton Tabi looks like a bottle: a matte dusty-green body, square shoulders, and a looped handle moulded into the cap so it hangs off a finger or a bag strap. It holds 0.55 litres, a flask of coffee for a train or a long morning, and the narrow neck keeps the heat where you put it. For the commuter, the person in the cold office, the one who walks the dog before it is light.
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10. Kähler Hammershøi – Two Boxes For After Christmas
Two round lidded boxes in two sizes, white, with pine branches, cones and small hanging ornaments drawn across them and a fine gold line at the foot. They are sold for Christmas and they come into their own on the 27th, when there are biscuits left over and nothing decent to keep them in. The Hammershøi Christmas boxes stack, which is the detail that keeps them on the shelf instead of in the loft by January.
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Final Thoughts
The thread running through these ten is not price, which covers a wide spread. It is that each one has a job: to keep a person warm, to hold tea, to take a knife, to carry a cup from one room to another. Things with a job survive the January cull. Things bought to be a gift and nothing else tend not to.
Buy early for the choice rather than the discount, though prices do move about in the weeks before Christmas, and they move differently in each country. Compare all ten across the shops on ScandiDeals before you order. The same blanket or pair of glasses can sit at a very different price in each country, and ten minutes of checking is the difference between the list you meant to buy and the one you settled for.
