Christmas is a time for giving… to dogs and cats

Sainsbury_Dog_Jumper
Christmas Family Dressing Red Santa Dog Jumper

With Christmas 2019 almost upon us, it’s time to think about presents for our loved ones.

No, I don’t mean our nearest and dearest friends and relatives. I mean creatures who we often put higher up the pecking order, our pets.

According to a study by Mars Petcare, pet owners will spend an average of £44 on treats and toys this Christmas. This adds up to over half a billion pounds in the UK over the festive season.

When asked why, 92% of respondents said they did not want their pets to feel left out.

This follows a trend of owners buying similar products for their dogs and cats as they buy for themselves. Examples include Christmas stockings, jumpers, Advent calendars and even pet friendly wine, beer and mince pies.

Tesco_mince_pies_for_dogs

Lily’s Kitchen is credited with introducing Advent calendar for pets in 2014 with a run of 5,000. But since then sales have grown to more than 50,000.

Lilys_Kitchen_Advent_Calendar_for_Dogs
Lilys Kitchen first Advent calendar containing dog biscuits

But when you are considering what tasty treats to buy for your loved ones, do remember their health should come first. The UK is currently in the midst of a dog and cat obesity epidemic, with 52% of pets obese or overweight, and with vets telling owners not to overindulge their pets or feed them inappropriately over Christmas. You have been warned.

Wrapsody has Christmas all wrapped up

Wrapsody presentYou have left it a bit late now, if you wanted to pay someone to do your Christmas wrapping. But if you really hate it that much you could always book up Wraposdy and employ one of their ‘wrapologists’ for next year.

Apart from having a great name, they also “believe that there is no gift unwrappable, no theme unworkable and no deadline too tight”. I love their sense of humour too, illustrated below.

Wrapsody text

Below is an example of the kind Christmas present wrapping they can produce.

Wrapsody presents

Like all good businesses, Wrapsody have a blog so they can share their activities with potential customers. Below you can see the team in action Christmas gift wrapping at Liberty of  London.

Wrapsody at Liberty

Wrapsody have the whole presents thing nicely ‘wrapped’ up (sorry couldn’t resist that pun). But I have found a couple of rivals elswhere in the country.

In Kent, “Wonder Wrap offer a unique and fabulous gift wrapping service for all occasions.

Your presents and gifts are beautifully wrapped and can even be grouped together to ensure you can easily present them to the lucky recipient.”

And in Wales, “Eclipse provides a professional gift wrapping service comprising high quality demonstrations, ‘hands-on’ workshops and professional gift wrapping services for businesses and individuals.”

Below Eclipse founder Alison Westwood gives some expert wrapping tips.

UK Christmas spending totals £43bn – but have you spent your £680 yet?

"Christbaumkugel" by User:Euro2008 - Transparent version of Christbaumkugel.jpg. Licensed under GFDL via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Christbaumkugel.png#mediaviewer/File:Christbaumkugel.png
“Christbaumkugel” by User:Euro2008

According to consultancy firm PwC, Christmas spending in the UK totalled £43bn in 2013, with consumers spending £680 on goods in the last two months of the year.

The Christmas period is still the busiest for the UK’s retailers, with just under a quarter of annual spending being carried out in the last two months of the year.

This year I did my bit for the Christmas economy by buying my first ever Christmas fir tree. After seeing lots of signs offering trees for sale, we ended up at the ultimate niche pop-up which sold Christmas trees, stands and nothing else. But they were doing a roaring trade, driven by a single sign by the side of the road.

Christmas Trees sign
Sign says all it needs to

The site was professionally run, with the trees sorted by size and needle-drop variety (drop or non-drop). I assumed they would only accept cash, but they had a credit card machine tucked away in a cosy shed. With our 8 foot whopper selected, they soon had it wrapped up, and three burly men carefully inserted it point-first into our car (for easy extraction at home).

Christmas trees for sale
Plenty of Christmas trees to choose from