Ethos’ 2025 Christmas gift guide

Here in our home city of Liverpool, colourful lights twinkle in the streets and sparkling baubles decorate our shopping centres. We’ve had serious discussions about the significance of Michael Bublé in our morning meetings while sipping festive-inspired hot drinks. Market stalls are up and selling sweet treats, mulled wine and trinkets. Christmas is a’coming!

There are also stacks of adverts and Christmas deals popping up in store, online and in our email inboxes. Even though it can be tempting to go on festive shopping sprees – especially with Black Friday rearing its head this week – we like to practice our ethos throughout every season. We enjoy slow and thoughtful stories with sustainability shining through and we try to approach our shopping the same way.

According to UK manufacturing consultant, Kate Hills (@MakeitBritish), buying even one Christmas gift from a small business puts an extra £2.6 billion into the pockets of makers, artists and independent stores at Christmas. So instead of buying a gift at a major retail store, how about browsing at your favourite local independent? It’s your way to contribute to a more creative and vibrant economy which benefits us all.

According to the BBC, Amazon received 41 orders per second in the UK on its busiest day in the run-up to Christmas – and retail waste generated by large retailers can increase by up to 30% during the festive period. For this year’s Christmas shopping, try shopping thoughtfully, consciously and smartly. It can be tempting, but don’t fall for the ‘buy now’ trap! Choose gifts that are durable and prioritise local or handmade items.

With over 21 million people receiving at least one unwanted gift, here’s our gentle reminder to think long-term – is this an impulse purchase? Is the packaging and process sustainable?

If you want to shop slowly, here’s our gift to you for this Christmas: your very own Ethos gift guide. If you’re either treating yourself or browsing for the perfect gift for somebody else, there’s something for everybody from festive candles, adaptive clothing and 100% recycled jeans.

1. Cocoapod has a stunning selection of festive chocolates with no single use plastics, recycled packaging and uses cocoa beans that are ethically sourced from Ghanaian farms. The box of Christmas Mosaic chocolates is a mix of dark, milk and white hand-made chocolates with festive patterns – delicious to look at and eat!

2. And because we love reading at Ethos, Well Read Company has great collections of book bags, journals and notebooks made from vegan leather and recycled materials. Perfect for bookworms and fans of literary classics, there’s something for all passionate readers.

3. Looking for the best jeans for Christmas, as well as for the planet? MTTR is the first brand to use regenerated denim made from 100% recycled cotton. Stylish, sleek and sustainable, join the pre-order list to gift a good pair of jeans.

(Right: MTTR jeans)

4. Around 33% of UK consumers enjoy making presents to give to others at Christmas. If you’re one of them, get crafty with this advent of 24 daily mini festive embroideries, Makebox&CO.

5. Greeting cards are a must for Christmas and Arthouse Unlimited (Pic: below) has a wide selection of colourful and fun cards created by talented artists with learning and physical disabilities.

6. Flamingo Candles are selling some aromatic festive candles. The cranberry and pomegranate Merry and Bright Christmas candle looks like the perfect smell to enter the cosy festive season.

7. Jumpers, hoodies and cosy knitwear are a go-to at this time of year. Sheep Inc’s knitwear is biodegradable and only uses wool from farms with carbon-negative practices. Not only do their clothes look and feel good, buying from them is good for the planet.

8. Family-run award-winning business, Mouse House Cheese, do festive-themed cheese platters.

Based in Lincolnshire, it proudly manufactures all of its cheeses at Lymn Bank Farm and even smokes the cheese on-site to preserve their family methods.

9. Adaptive fashion line, Intotum, creates stylish, accessible and functional clothing for the disabled community.

Magnetic buttons, tubease dresses and backless trench coats – it’s a thoughtful gift for those that need it.

(Pic: left)

10. If you still haven’t bought our latest issue of Ethos, now is the time to! Treat yourself or to your loved ones with an Ethos subscription.

We share stories about good businesses from all over the globe – from textile artists in Ghana, citizen tokens in Ukraine and inflatable bike helmets being created in Hackney.

And, of course, have you thought about giving someone an experience instead of an object this Christmas? There’s lots of research that shows how people – especially younger generations in Millennials and Gen Z – increasingly prioritise experiences over material gifts. With people becoming more conscious of what they buy and minimalism gaining plenty of traction, why not create your own Christmas cards, have a cooking class with friends and family, or simply host an intense game night?

By adding a National Trust gift membership to your Christmas list, you’ll be gifting a magazine subscription, free entry to more than 500 places that are in the care of the National Trust and will overall be supporting the great organisation.

Bookshop.org is an online bookshop supporting local and independent bookstores by giving the majority of its profits to them. A great gift would be to get bookish by buying a book.org gift card. If you’re interested in some of our favourite reads, you can browse our bookstore and see what our team has been reading recently in our ethos bookshop.

If you’re interested in looking for more trinkets, gifts and festive treats check out the Colour Friday campaign, which champions independent stores and aims to make us think about Black Friday’s overconsumption. Share these great businesses with your friends and family and spread the ethos about shopping consciously.

How are you shopping slowly and smartly this season? And if there are any small businesses that you love and want to share with us, we want to hear about it. Email us at [email protected]!