I feel a dose of Christmas spirit is sorely needed. There is a distinct sense that cheer is in short supply on this island. But why, dear friend? We sit on one of the greatest pieces of land in the world and we are entirely capable of throwing a proper Christmas shindig. Several below prove the point in spades. Add to that a few excellent sales - a piece of Pinch for Christmas? What a delight. Or a slow circle around the Spotlight Market? Always a treat. And then, of course, one must dive into a

As you’ll have noticed, we’ve produced many a Christmas wish lists over the years. Those are ours, of course, but this season I wanted to ask a handful of women I admire what they would choose for Christmas. The obvious first call was Liz Elliot. For those not already acquainted, she is my mother, and has been at House & Garden for quite a while. I may be biased, but her CV more than bears out her reputation.

The death of publishing has been a protracted subject. Every year a fresh set of doomsayers appears in online columns to announce that soon we will abandon anything printed on a weekly or monthly basis, or anything that does not live entirely on the internet. It has long been a bugbear of mine. As I have admitted before, I am a luddite and proud of it. You have to be made of rather dense material these days not to feel sceptical about the motives of the tech world. One of those motives is the sc