Book love

If you know me, you might already know this, but when it comes to present-buying, I take things seriously.

I have been known to miss people's birthdays entirely because I haven't found a gift I like enough to buy. (Note: I do not recommend this.) My record for belated gift-giving is around 13 months. (Again, not recommended. Sorry Nat!)

I usually start researching waaay in advance but then procrastinate about potential options for ages. Quite often I'll have the perfect present in my head and then get increasingly frustrated when I can't find an exact physical representation of the image in my mind. And when I do buy something and feel like I've hit the wrong note, I remember it for years. Actually years.

Anyway, all of this is a long-winded way of saying that at least with birthday and Christmas gifts, you get another chance every year. But christening presents? There's only one opportunity to get it right. And it's not like you've known the person you're shopping for very long - in fact, you have very little idea what kind of person they're going to grow up to be, what they'll love, or care about, or cherish.

Forgive me for saying this, but I really doubt it's going to be a silver egg cup.

So I tend to go with books. Beautiful, ornamental books that serve as both bookshelf eye-candy and future escape to other worlds. Fairy tales, adventure stories, some of my favourite classics, in hardback, and preferably with gorgeous illustrations.

They're surprisingly hard to find. But I think I might have hit the jackpot, courtesy of Barnes and Noble. These three are about to form a christening gift for a certain little boy:

Because, in the words of J.M Barrie, all children, except one, grow up. And if they grow up imagining pirates  and treasure, Toad of Toad Hall, crocodiles and fairies and messing about on the river - well, so much the better.