Have yourself a Merry Indie Christmas
Illyria Pottery’s lust worthy Christmas Window
I’m a big lover of Christmas. I love the food, the fact I can spend a lot of time with family and eat far too much. I will unashamedly watch terrible films all afternoon while eating chocolate and decorate the house so it looks like Santa or Rudolph has sneezed glitter, lights and anything sparkly all over it – the more over the top the better. I absolutely love giving presents, but that’s also where I kind of panic.
I’ll admit it, I can be an anxious person, and when it comes to present buying I always worry I’ve bought crap gifts. In the past it’s not been for lack of trying, but after being bombarded by an incredible amount of generic products created just for Christmas for large stores to make a million quid or two, I kind of lose the will to live. On the surface, it can be hard to find something well made and unique that you know will be appreciated and I’ll admit I’ve bought the odd novelty spatula that looks like a guitar or a torch that looks like a sonic screwdriver. They’re also great when you’ve only got £10 to spend for Secret Santa where the only thing you know about your colleague is that they like eggs and are a Star Wars fanatic (hello R2D2 egg cup!), but after it has been used a handful of times in the week that follows, it gets put in a draw and forgotten.
How to get round it? Have yourself an Indie Christmas – that’s what I’ll be doing this year. It can be hard to buy everything from indie shops as we’re all stretched for time and funds, but I challenge you to buy indie where possible. Why? (and prepare for sales pitch) Not only does it put money back into the local economy, but you’re fuelling a local community, empowering people who have a passion for what they do, finding awesome gifts at prices to suit every pocket; you’ll also be able to have a natter while you do it AND you’ll be giving someone a gift that’s highly unlikely to end up being chewed by the family pet…
Now, how to do that? Well, that’s where we’re here to help…
We Are Open. Sign from Shop at the Old Fire Station’s Christmas exhibition including stationary from The Compartment Store
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Use our directory.
Our Directory is a good starting point and so far we’ve got over 60 places in and around Oxford. There’s plenty to choose from!
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Come along to our first ever Indie Oxford Christmas Gift Market, 28th November 10am-7pm
This festive season we’ve teamed up with Turl Street Kitchen to bring you our first ever Christmas Gift Market. We’ve got 19 Oxford based shops and businesses selling their wares to the indie hungry public, all in one convenient place. Want to get your Christmas shopping done in one enjoyable swoop? Then this is the place to do it. Find out who’s coming along on our event page.
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Check out Small Business Saturday.
Originally an American initiative, SBS came over to the UK in 2013. Small Business Saturday UK is a grassroots, non-commercial campaign, which highlights small business success and encourages consumers to ‘shop local’ and support small businesses in their communities. Small businesses take part by offering discount and listing themselves on the SBS website – you’ll find a number of Oxford based ones on there so shop local and grab an offer! It always take place on the first Saturday in December- this year that’s the 5th December. This year they added a tour bus to the promotional activities and it came to Oxford last week. Rosie went to meet them…
Rosie on a visit to the Small Business Saturday Bus on the 19th November
Enjoy your Indie Christmas shopping and don’t forget to let us know about your purchases via Twitter or Instagram using the #IndieOxford
Anna
x x x
