7 Christmas Gifts for Yourself: A French-Inspired Edit
What to Buy Yourself This Christmas When You’ve Been Sensible All Year
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Ma chère, by December you may have developed an alarming talent for buying exactly what everybody needs.
The correct size. The preferred color. A replacement for something that has been making an unfortunate noise since September.
Meanwhile, your own Christmas wish list contains a beautiful robe you keep visiting online, where you admire its sleeves before returning to the urgent business of everybody else’s happiness.
I would like you to buy yourself the gift you most desire this year, within a budget you can comfortably enjoy.
Taking care of yourself belongs in the holiday preparations, and the old saying about Mom being happy has survived for reasons that become particularly apparent around Christmas.
Perhaps you want to spend your evenings looking romantically unavailable in ivory lace. Perhaps you would rather discover a perfume that makes lunch at home considerably more interesting.
If you’re wondering what to buy yourself for Christmas, these seven possibilities give you somewhere lovely to start. Choose the one you keep imagining using.
Let’s begin.
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1. The robe for your considerably more romantic evenings at home
Natori Luxe Shangri-La Robe: $160. My choice: Cashmere Ivory.
Mais oui, darling, you can dress for an evening in your own sitting room. The remote hardly objects to ivory lace.
This Natori is on my wish list because it has an elegant silhouette and those romantic lace cuffs, which suggest a woman whose evenings might involve a handwritten invitation. You can tie the belt and borrow a little of her atmosphere while deciding whether you have the energy for subtitles.
Imagine that you are spending the evening in a French country house, where the sitting room is yours and the film selection requires your particular judgment.
Settle into the cushions, draw your feet beneath you and let the ivory lace fall around your wrists as you reach for the remote.
You are considering something beautifully shot, with a leading man who would be disastrous in real life.
Someone asks where the charger is.
You can point languidly without abandoning the role.
What appeals to me is how much romance the shape and sleeves provide without the heavy padding I dislike in a robe. I want to be comfortable, with enough length to feel cozy, while retaining some evidence that there is a woman inside.
Cashmere Ivory is the color name; the fabric is modal and polyester. Natori lists a 45-inch length from the back neckline. Bloomingdale’s lists sizes XS through XL and machine washing, with the care label supplying the particulars for those lovely cuffs.
2. A tinted balm for a woman who still intends to eat lunch
Typology Replenishing Lip Balm T41, Ceramides + Hyaluronic Acid: $39.90 for 0.16 oz. My first choice: Rosewood Pink; alternative: Berry Red.
I like a lip color that can accompany a woman through her day without requiring the close supervision usually reserved for a toddler near an open paint pot.
Rosewood Pink is my first choice here, with Berry Red another possibility when available. Both appeal to me for wearing throughout the year, long after the last Christmas invitation has disappeared and you are once again putting on lip color to buy bread.
The particular attraction of this balm is that it works on cheeks as well as lips. You can add a little color to your mouth, blend a touch onto your cheeks, and have the pleasure of looking more polished without opening several containers and conducting a small investigation into what goes where.
I also value the skincare side of the formula. Hyaluronic acid is an ingredient I look for when winter dryness arrives, and the combination with ceramides makes this especially interesting to me as a balm to try.
The refillable case also appeals to me: when you find the shade you want to keep wearing, you can replace the balm inside its holder.
Un peu de couleur before lunch, with enough attention left over for the croque-monsieur. Apply a light layer and enjoy seeing that touch of pink or berry when you pass the mirror on your way to the table.
3. Cashmere to wear while making yourself thoroughly at home
C by Bloomingdale’s Cashmere Open-Front Cardigan: Now $79.99 (regularly $188; 57% off). My choices: Heather Oatmeal or Heather Burgundy. Sale ends October 18, 2026.
There is a particular kind of winter dressing in which every additional layer makes you look increasingly prepared to investigate a boiler. I would prefer cashmere.
The elegant, unbulky appearance of this cardigan is what draws me to it. I would choose Heather Oatmeal for versatility, though Heather Burgundy has the richer, slightly dramatic quality I have been enjoying in our Vamp Romantic autumn.
Wear it over jeans and a top at home, or with trousers when you go out. On colder days, I would also try it between a sweater and a jacket, leaving enough room through the sleeves for the whole arrangement to remain comfortable.
For a Sunday afternoon, imagine borrowing the leisure of a rented house in Normandy, rain against the windows and lunch taking as long as you please.
Put the cardigan on, warm something delicious in the oven and cut yourself a proper slice.
A supermarket quiche can participate perfectly well in this arrangement; there is no need to alarm it with questions about provenance.
You might sit down with a book while lunch warms, still in the same soft layer you will wear when you eventually venture outside.
The cardigan is pure cashmere, with a shawl collar and open front. Bloomingdale’s describes the fit as true to size and recommends dry cleaning. Choose oatmeal if that is what you want to reach for most; burgundy can supply the deeper color if that is what keeps catching your eye.
4. A fragrance discovery set, with no need to settle immediately
Matière Première Fragrance Discovery Gift Set: $75. Ten eau de parfum samples, each listed at 0.06 oz.
A full bottle asks for a commitment. A discovery set lets you have an interesting little courtship first, which is particularly useful when a fragrance has behaved beautifully on paper and you would like to know how it behaves on you.
Matière Première is a French fragrance house, and this set is made in France. Radical Rose is the one I would most like to try, because I adore the romantic quality of rose scents and want to discover this particular version.
I like wearing a sample throughout the day before deciding. Try one in the morning, then notice what you smell later when you lift your wrist. Does it still interest you? Would you want to put it on again tomorrow?
You might imagine yourself writing a discreet reply to a French admirer, pausing to consider your choice of words. Quelle imagination, ma chère. You are answering a message about sandwiches, but the perfume needn’t know.
Alongside Radical Rose, the set includes Vanilla Powder, Crystal Saffron, Falcon Leather, French Flower, Parisian Musc, Encens Suave, Santal Austral, Bois d’Ebène and Neroli Oranger. There is time to be curious about another one before choosing a bottle.
Explore the fragrance discovery set
5. French micellar water for when you would very much like to go to bed
Typology 7-Ingredient Micellar Water: $23.50 for 200 ml / 6.76 fl. oz.
By bedtime, the prospect of splashing water around the bathroom can feel unnecessarily athletic. This is when I appreciate my Typology micellar water.
I reach for it before bed and on rushed school mornings because it is easy to use without running water, and I enjoy the refreshing, hydrated feeling it leaves.
It is made in France, which adds to its appeal, but the reason it earns a place here is how readily it fits into a real morning or evening.
All you have to do is squeeze some onto a cotton pad and sweep over your face, following the product directions for makeup removal.
You can take care of your skin while the bathroom remains reasonably dry and your sleeves remain outside the proceedings. Put the cap back on and climb into bed. Bonne nuit.
See the Typology micellar water
6. Provence, bound beautifully and available without packing
Assouline Provence Glory by François Simon: $105. Linen hardcover; 312 pages; approximately 9.8 × 13 × 1.5 inches.
I would like to end an evening with something more appealing to look at than another screen offering to explain what is wrong with the world.
Provence Glory is on my wish list because I love the old-school, grounding quality of a hardcover book, and this one offers somewhere I would enjoy letting my mind wander before bed. Its exploration of Provence takes in the region’s landscapes, food and artistic associations.
Open it beside your chair and linger over whichever pages catch your attention. Imagine spending the following afternoon in the south of France, choosing where to wander and where you might stop to eat. You can turn back to something beautiful without a notification arriving over the top of it.
I would also keep it on the coffee table, where a guest could open it and the conversation might turn toward somewhere we would like to go. At roughly six pounds, it deserves a table or a cushion while you read. Dropping Provence on your nose would introduce considerably more excitement into bedtime than I had intended.
7. A red-light face mask for the indulgence you’ve been considering
HigherDOSE Red Light Face Mask: $349 for the mask alone.
There is something agreeably extravagant about putting on a beauty device that makes answering the door a matter for somebody else’s judgment.
My interest in the HigherDOSE mask comes partly from having used a whole-body infrared sauna. I loved the feeling of restoration and calm it provided. That experience made me appreciate the pleasure of setting aside time for care, and I am curious about making room for a beauty-device ritual at home.
The mask is a different treatment from a sauna, so I would judge it on its own terms. At this price, I would want to look forward to using it regularly.
HigherDOSE offers ten- or twenty-minute sessions and recommends three to five uses a week, beginning with a clean, dry face. The kit includes the controller, straps, power accessories, storage bag and goggles. Read the manufacturer’s suitability guidance and instructions before choosing it.
I can imagine getting comfortable for a session and allowing that time to belong to the treatment, without having to travel home afterward.
Take a closer look at the HigherDOSE mask
Your name belongs on the lovely list
À vous de choisir. Return to your Christmas list and put something beside your own name that you would be pleased to unwrap.
You probably have an idea already. Perhaps you have mentally moved into the robe, or you are wondering where the Provence book would sit beside your chair. Give that particular desire a little more attention before another useful household purchase interrupts.
Choose within your budget, and let it be something you want to enjoy. Taking care of yourself need not wait until every present has been wrapped and everybody else has been made thoroughly comfortable.
Put your own name on the gift tag, ma chère. When the parcel arrives, you are allowed to be the person who opens it.
With cashmere and a little something pour moi,
The Glamtorious Mrs.
