The reality of Christmas for many couples is that the gifts they may give each other will reflect some shared desires as a couple. Sexy lingerie, grooming sets, gardening equipment and cookbooks all come into this category, covering everything from private moments in the bedroom to being better at entertaining guests.
If you are choosing for a man, you may want to go down this route, or you can opt for something he will like but might not be of any interest to you, such as some boy’s toys.
What is not in doubt is you really have lots of choices. Indeed, if you go online looking for ideas you can be confronted with Fashion Beans giving you a list of no fewer than 70 things it says he will love, while Popular Mechanics tops that with 75, although it characterises its list as being for ‘men who never shop for themselves’.
While both of these include a few items connected with hygiene and appearance such as toothpastes, shavers and personal grooming sets, only the Fashion Beans site suggests getting a washbag to help carry some of this stuff around.
More is the pity, because if you want your man to look good not just at Christmas, but into New Year and beyond, nothing beats a men’s personalised washbag. The fact that it can be made with his own name on it gives it an extra bit of style, pride and identity that, hopefully, will get him using it regularly.
It’s not just that you will be getting him something stylish to go with all the other smart gear he might wear or otherwise use; he will also, with a bit of luck, get that bit cleaner.
In many ways, Christmas isn’t the best time to encourage a man to be getting cleaner and fresher. After all, it’s not like summer when folk can sweat buckets just by walking around outside for a few minutes in the hot sun. Instead, he will no doubt be under many layers of warm clothes.
Even the man of the moment isn’t exactly leading by example. Father Christmas only has one outfit, which shows he is all too confident that his style will always be in fashion. It’s been like this since Coca-Cola took over his image rights in the 1930s.
There is worse to come; while he might start and end his journeys in Lapland, we have to ask just how much of a sweat he must work up by visiting hot countries - and the amount of grime (and dead birds) he must get covered in going up and down chimneys.
All that might make Santa the ideal candidate for his own man bag full of toiletries to clean up and do some grooming, yet the only bag he carries is a sack of presents and his white bushy beard shows no evidence of grooming. It is, alas, a chance missed.
But, then again, who knows? Perhaps Father Christmas secretly spends the rest of the year incognito, unrecognisable with his clean shave, tan and smart washbag as he enjoys some downtime on a tropical island until next year.
