Personalised Christmas Gifts and Stocking Fillers for Grown-Ups

Christmas is the busiest season of the year for personalised gifts, and the most unforgiving: miss the order deadline and the engraved present arrives in January. Here is how to plan, what works for which person and some stocking fillers grown-ups actually enjoy.

Start with the calendar

Personalised items are made to order, and engravers, printers and the postal service all run at full capacity in December. As a rule of thumb, order engraved and printed gifts by the end of November, and treat the first week of December as a soft deadline for anything that needs a proof approved. The last recommended posting dates for Royal Mail usually fall a few days before Christmas, but makers set their own cut-offs earlier. Our UK gifting calendar lists the dates to plan around all year.

Gifts for the people you know best

• Partners: engraved jewellery, a leather wallet with initials, a photo book of the year, a weekend away revealed in a personalised card.
• Parents: a family photo printed on slate or wood, an engraved decanter set, a tea tin filled with their favourite blend.
• Grandparents: a calendar with a family photo for every month, a keepsake box of letters, an engraved bauble with every grandchild's name.
• Friends: a personalised gin or wine glass, a printed mug with an in-joke, a sweet jar filled with their favourites.

Baubles, stockings and things for the tree

Personalised decorations are the Christmas gift that comes back every year. An engraved glass or wooden bauble with a name and year is a lovely tradition for a couple's first Christmas, a new home or a new arrival. Embroidered stockings with names are an heirloom-in-waiting. For the craft behind them, see how engraving works and how printed gifts are made.

Secret Santa: the £10 to £20 challenge

Office Secret Santa usually comes with a spending limit of around £10 to £20. Personalised items punch above their price: a mug with a name, a keyring with an initial, a small sweet jar with a label that says "Property of (name), do not touch". Keep jokes kind and avoid anything that would embarrass someone at work. Our guide to gift etiquette and budgets covers the unwritten rules.

A scratchcard in the stocking, and the Spanish way of giving luck

Ask a British family what goes in a grown-up's stocking and somewhere between the satsuma and the chocolate coins you will hear "a scratchcard". National Lottery scratchcards have been a Christmas stocking filler since the 1990s, and the ritual of everyone scratching at once on Christmas morning, with the inevitable "I won two pounds!", is half the fun.

Spain has turned the same idea into a national institution. The Christmas lottery, El Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad, known as El Gordo ("the fat one"), has been drawn every year since 1812, traditionally on 22 December, with schoolchildren from Madrid's San Ildefonso school singing out the winning numbers on live television. What makes it a gift tradition is the sharing: families, offices, bars and football clubs buy tenth-shares called décimos and hand out participations as presents, so that when a number wins, whole streets and workplaces celebrate together. A British version is easy to copy: give a share in a family or office syndicate for the New Year's Day draw, with a personalised certificate in the card. Our guide to a lottery syndicate as a gift explains how UK syndicates work and how to write the agreement that keeps everyone friends.

Boxing Day at the races

For racing families, Christmas does not end on the 25th. Boxing Day is one of the biggest days in the National Hunt calendar, headlined by the King George VI Chase at Kempton Park, and the Welsh Grand National usually follows at Chepstow a day or so later. A ticket for a Boxing Day meeting, wrapped with an engraved hip flask and a racecard holder, is a superb present for anyone who goes stir-crazy indoors. Read our notes on hip flasks and the racecourse before filling the flask, as many courses do not allow you to bring your own drink in.

Last-minute ideas that still feel personal

• A printed voucher for a "night out on me", designed by you.
• A handwritten recipe book of family favourites.
• A framed photograph from this year with a short note on the back.
• A donation to a charity they care about, with a personalised card.

Written by the Ribbon & Tag editors.