Our massive holiday gift guide, and tips for a less stressful Christmas
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Welcome to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I'm Lila Raptopoulos, and this is our Friday chat show. We are staunchly in December, which means the festive season is here. And what a joy it is. Couples are walking their Christmas trees home, families are stringing lights in the windows, and according to the internet, if you haven't started Christmas shopping yet, you're late.

December is that magical month that some years can feel sweet and wonderful and some years can just feel stressful. For me, this year, the stress is starting to mount. So I've invited in the big guns. These are two of my colleagues behind the two exceptional gift guides that we put out every year. And they're here to tell us how to actually enjoy getting ready for the holidays and be present for the season and also give us some ideas for gifts.

Let's get into it. I'm Lila in New York. And yes, my father did give me the Barbra Streisand memoir for Christmas last year. And yes, I did just give it away. Joining me from London, rumor has it, he skipped into the studio on a $1,400 Prada jump rope. It's the deputy editor of our luxury magazine, HTSI, the great Louis Wise. Hi, Louis. Welcome. Hi, Lila. I loved...

That jump rope. Who knew it existed? I am obsessed with that jump rope, although I got a message from Robert Armstrong, our wonderful colleague, with the words, Proud of jump rope, bad. Yeah.

so it has certainly caused some ripples but that was the aim to be honest. Yeah that's good, well Prada jump rope good as far as I'm concerned. Also in London she recently on our behalf asked two cheesemongers the party etiquette for how to cut into a cheese. It is the FT Magazine's food and drink editor the great Harriet Fitch Little. Welcome Harriet. Hi Laila, this is

All the journalism that you expect from the FT. The important stuff. I'm really thrilled to have you both here because the stress around gifts can get the best of us every December. And this year I feel a little behind. And so I thought maybe we can start with just building listeners up a bit for this challenge or talking them off a ledge. Like, why should this season be fun?

Harriet, why don't we start with you? Well, it's so hard to know how to answer that without sort of sounding like you're trying to be an influencer, isn't it? But I mean, Christmas, it's all about love. It's all about the people who matter most to you. It's not really about what you get given, but maybe sometimes it is. I see we disagree. I mean, I think the only way you can go really wrong with gifts is if you get like a gift

gift set of like a tiny bottle of gin and even more tiny bottles of tonic or like three different tiny deodorants for a man, none of which that actually wear in real life. I think as long as you stay away from that shelf,

As long as you wrap it well, then you are going to give something that is, you know, really loved. And as long as you like hype it up, you know, really make them think that you thought of them, even if you didn't. Oh, I do disagree. Well, I really disagree because I think you have to under hype. It's very British and be like, oh, it's just this little thing. Oh, God, no, I'm really not sure if you're going to like it. And so when they open that rubbish paper bag, I'd be like, no, I love it. Oh, my God, are you joking? Just really aim the bar low at Christmas.

These are two good strategies for different types of families. I think this is good. I mean, I was going to say about Christmas. I mean, it's coming once a year. You can't avoid it, so you may as well get into it. That's my...

It's not like it goes away, I've discovered with age. Are you worried you invited the wrong people on, Lila? Well, we're being honest, which I think is much needed. You know, I think there's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of sort of like false looking joy. I'm going for the like real honest, half frustrated, half tearing your hair out, but also joy type of joy.

We can do that. There's a lot of stress and pressure around Christmas, that's for sure. And nowhere is that more obvious than when you are giving, buying gifts. Because I definitely feel the kind of like horrible stress of...

uh feeling like i suddenly have to like reward my family for being my family for the past year it's like will this little scarf show my sister thanks for all the ways which just like saved my life not sure but i'll keep pushing um and yes it kind of brings home to you kind of who are you and what are you bringing literally to the table

What is it to you both? Like, what is the actual I mean, I know the pressure behind buying gifts. I think you're right. It's sort of like, thank you for being my family. And let me show you all the ways in which you mean something to me in this one little, you know, token. But what is the point do you think of buying gifts? You know, I think a lot of families do this thing that my family does sometimes, which is

We say no gifts this year and then nobody does that ever. And we all buy gifts anyway and we all overdo it. We can't help ourselves. Yeah. What is the kind of value of giving and receiving? Well, part of it is guilt. Good old fashioned guilt, I would say. But also it's a bit like when people say, what's the point of weddings and marriages now? I think it's in a nice way, it maybe forces you to think and to give and to go beyond yourself.

um just as with marriages it's kind of like two people stand up and say I love you which you wouldn't see otherwise this is an opportunity where you say oh here's this thing I always thought you might want and the rest of life runs by very quickly the exception is obviously when you have kids

and you know present birthday presents and so on but beyond that as I say I mentioned my sister but this is kind of a moment where we kind of say you know I spend Christmas with her every year it's like oh okay I'm gonna do a gesture kind of capital A capital G and the rest of the time Lila I'm far too self-absorbed to do I mean truly you laugh but that's it it's like think beyond yourself for two minutes

So that I would say is a good reason why. Yeah, and I think if you plan for Christmas, which is, you know, maybe this is more advice for next year, but it can actually be quite a satisfying thing throughout the year because it gives you

Yeah.

But what I've been trying to do this year is keep a little list so that every time someone tells me something that they like, who I know I'm going to be buying a present for, I've been writing it down. And there are things on there that I would have just forgotten about otherwise. I was thinking back on the list, thinking, what can I get my friends in Australia, which is, you know, the present I sort of need to send this week. And then I remembered like, oh, yeah, we were on holiday together and she wouldn't stop talking about her pressure cooker. So I'm going to get her a book about pressure cooking. Wow.

Wow. Are you sending a friend in Australia a present? I know. That automatically discounts it for me. My sister lives in Highbury. Do you know what I mean? She's down the road. That's nice, though. It's a good that's a good way to think about. So like any time even now, open up a note in your notes app and just start it for any time. And anytime anybody says something, throw it in there so that you remember later. Exactly.

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that's a great idea. I wanted to ask just quickly, I guess your philosophy around gift giving. I read this really great Vox article. I think I sent it to you both. I'll put it in the show notes. And it basically said that

A gift doesn't have to be like totally life changing to be successful or totally expensive to be meaningful or something that like the person has to keep forever to be useful to them. That it should just be like one of three things. It should either introduce something to someone that they might not otherwise know about. It could be a nicer version of something that people wouldn't buy for themselves or it can in some small way just make them feel like you know them. Just kind of try to hit one of those buckets.

I found that kind of helpful. Yeah, I think that's really fair. That's nice. Yeah, I think so. And there are lots of gifts you can give, which people will think are incredibly sort of thoughtful and meaningful to them. But actually, we just all have the same problems in life. Like nobody is happy with their pans. So if you don't know what to give someone, just give them a really nice pan where all the nonstick stuff hasn't already rubbed off and they will be delighted and they will think that you are solving a problem that is sort of unique to them.

Yeah, it's like a kind of reusable water bottle or just like a blue sweatshirt. Like I'm a big fan of the kind of like standard but good quality present. Yeah, like, I think definitely that middle one can get them a slightly nicer version. It's like, thank you. Yes, I want that. I want like a nice white t-shirt.

Give me seven if you want. Don't get me like a weird like, you know, mauve one with funny patterns on it. I mean, I like mauve, no disrespect to mauve, but you kind of like something which helps you live every day is always a nice present. Yeah, yeah. Okay, let's jump into the actual gift buying and strategies, assuming that we're starting today. Okay.

We all. Yeah. And actually, I will say the years that I was most successful with gifts were when I started them in like March and made everybody the same thing or did the same thing for everybody. One year I digitized all our family home videos. And this is a while ago now. So I put them on DVDs.

but gave them to my extended family or one year I spent the whole year collecting recipes and made a cookbook of family recipes and then just gave everybody the cookbook and my Uncle Bob cried that is great why have you got us on this show you don't need us

Well, you can't do that every year. I nearly fell off my chair when you said you'd made everyone something. I was like, excuse me. Well, you make one thing and you repeat it. Well, I made my mother a scarf once with ostentatiously large wooden knitting needles that I bought for myself. I think the knitting needles probably cost more than the wool. And I sat there for like five weeks knitting this bizarre raggedy red scarf, which she claimed she likes. But I mean...

I have a situation in my family, which is becoming more of a situation every year, which is that my parents, who are very undemanding people in every other respect,

believe that a gift needs to be handmade to be meaningful. Oh no, like made by the elves. So that's the struggle that I am annually faced with, how to make something homemade when you're a 34-year-old. Terrible pressure as well, I think. Exactly. You can make jam. I'd love some homemade jam over here. They wouldn't. Just a little. Why? Not personalized. Not personalized? Well, put something weird in it. I'd have to put something weird in it.

Okay, so let me ask this. So what would you suggest sort of to start? Would you make a list of people? Do you start with a spreadsheet? Do you just like write a list out? Do you do it all from memory? How do you start to organize yourself? Yeah, I just have a note in my phone because that's just how you live now. I think like all of my thoughts are in those notes.

and then you can add to it throughout the year I was going to say a big tip is if you see a present throughout the year if you see anything where you're like oh that would be nice for them get it just buy it just buy it get it yeah there's no I always regret it every year you know I get to like it might be in May and I'm on holiday somewhere bizarre and I think oh that was a really funny gift I'd love to get that for X for Christmas I don't do it because I think well it's May and

and, you know, get to now. And I'm like, why didn't I get that unique, interesting gift that was good for them? Yeah.

As opposed to kind of crying and muji on December the 17th. Right, right, right. I actually also, and this reminded me, I also sometimes, if I just see something that's nice and reasonably priced in like a secondhand store, like little bowls in an antique store or candlestick holders or something, I just buy them, even if I don't know who they're for yet. I just buy them too. Lila, they're for you. Yeah, that's the trouble, isn't it? If they suit your taste. I can't think it's weird.

I take it from someone who knows. I keep buying these gifts, perspective gifts for these potential friends. No, but then when you're like, shit, I need a gift. You got it. You have something. I know what you mean. I do keep most of it. No, I keep it.

So you have your sort of list and you have a few gifts figured out and those people are handled. Then what? Do you start pulling up tabs? I feel like this is a good time for the guides to sort of go through them and let them inspire you. Do you just like kind of sit and think like, you know, what is my sister's?

who is she and who am I? Texting people, what do you want? Doesn't really seem like a nice thing. Yeah, I would say if you're going to text people, what do you want, which is actually a really nice and useful thing to do. The latest you can do it, I would say, is mid-November. You should do it because it's really helpful and you often end up buying people far nicer things. And if you do it in mid-November, it's thoughtful because it's like, I'm thinking ahead. I want you to get something really nice.

If you do it this week, it's like, sorry, but it's like panic. Yeah, I mean, yeah, yes. Okay, what are some good gifts that you think would really work for anyone? Like a category that I think a lot of people have trouble with is...

batch gifts, like the one gift that you give to, you know, your kid's teacher, a couple of colleagues, the guy who cuts your lawn, that sort of thing. Louis, you had some good ideas for this when we talked before this. I mentioned the panettone, which is now, you know, it's a virus that's taken over the world, the panettone. But it's for a reason.

And it spells out a certain nature festivity. It's a bit distinctive. It's typical to the year and most people like it. Like if you don't like it, I mean, sorry, I can't do anything for you. It's not alcoholics. It's not controversial. It's something you can share. So I'm very pro that.

I think if you're giving people sort of quite generic gifts because you've got to give them a gift, it is nice if it's sort of a twist on a classic. So rather than the Panettone, maybe you do a Pandoro, which is the one that's shaped like a star. And then maybe you can say something like, hey, I saw in the FT magazine Christmas special that Nigella Lawson thinks this is far better than Panettone. Mm.

So that's why I got it for you. Nice. They might say, but I saw on the HTSI part of the website, there's a great panettone out this year, Harriet. So what are you going to do about that? That's what I'd recommend. And for people who are close to you, I would say I have sort of a set of three people who I need to get something for every year who don't know each other. And the presents are sort of around the £20 mark, so quite cheap.

And

And I do generally just like choose one thing that I think is really good and give it to all of them. Like a good one is one of those Japanese gardening knives that you can use as like a trowel or you can use it to cut stuff. And like it's quite stylish. People definitely won't have one already. So that's a really nice thing that you can just give to lots of people. The other one, which is like so unsexy, but everyone kept on telling me all year how good it was. Maybe they just didn't know what else to say. It was a de-bobbler.

Oh, I'd love that. I would love. Oh, like for the fuzz on your sweaters? Exactly. It's like a tiny little handheld machine that you run over your favorite jumpers. Just like a perfect, like slow January evening activity. Right. That was really, really popular. So if you sort of hit on something good like that, and I suppose the thing about both of those is that I can say like, this is something that I'm obsessed with. And I think you will be too. Right.

And that's a nice way to do it. Yeah, yeah. I also noticed, also, I love that this has become a war of the gift guides. I didn't quite expect it, but it's kind of funny. No, he did just say that sounded lovely. So there is some common ground. I'm being considerate.

Nigella Lawson also in your guide suggested that like the only fresh ground pepper that she uses or the only pepper that she uses is this type, Kampot pepper. And the best brand is Kadode. She gave me some and I put it in a special pepper grinder. Is it good? It can't be that good. I mean, it is just pepper. But when people come over, they can scrunch the Nigella peppercorns over their food. And what a lovely twist for the festive season.

season. Yeah, it's a good story, right? You're like, I spent 18 euros on this pepper for you because Nigella Lawson says it's the only one that you're supposed to use. Exactly. It's a good story. I would say I would buy the pepper grinder as well, maybe, for the right person. That's a nice package. I think just some peppercorns. That's not good.

Leveling us up. The HTSI in me is really jumping out there. Seriously, thank you, Louis. Come on. Really, what you're trying to avoid, I'm actually wondering if you think we should try to avoid this, is when somebody opens something and you're like, I promise it's really good. It's the pepper's good. And they're like, oh, no.

They're sort of a disappointed look on their face. Yeah, when you have to explain a gift, it's true. But often those are the best gifts. But also there's a funny thing because I was thinking about this. There's also primary gifts and secondary gifts. It's like if you love someone, you kind of get them the classic gift and then you get them the fun thing. Do you do several? Do you do a selection of how? Would you do like a trio of gifts to someone if they were small and cute? Yeah, might do that. I also have to do stockings for my family.

family every year. I know, so that's a big commitment. Laila, I don't know if Americans even do stockings. Yeah, we do stockings. Okay, great. Sorry for not knowing that. The Pilgrim Fathers came over with them. Yes, it's true. We use the stockings of your ancestors, I believe. Yeah, exactly, on the Mayflower.

So that's lots of little gifts in a stocking. Yeah. So what are good little gifts? I was, you know, yeah, what are good little gifts? Really nice food stuff is a good little gift, right? Sort of like cherries and brandy, like that sort of thing. Olive oil. Olive oil is a really good little gift. That can swiftly not become a soul. That can be like a £20 gift. Exactly. That's HTSI. Yeah. Pants. Pants, if you know the person well.

good gift oh yeah although I have to say underwear yeah my mother still really the cliche does try to give me and my brother-in-law socks it's like please stop you know please and I love her I'm very grateful for everything she's done for me but I'm really do not need a sock but

But isn't it again like what you were saying about getting the best quality stuff like the socks we've got in the gift guide in the magazine are like red socks but they're the really nice sort of toast ones and it's like oh that is just a classic you know if you got that you wouldn't be like oh I got some socks. Yeah it's true. Oh these are socks I would never buy for myself and that's a nice thing. Yes that's yeah fair maybe I'm just being mean about my mother's selection. Also I don't like stripy gimmicky ones I can't bear like things I've moved off on or like a Christmas pudding on it.

A novelty sock makes me feel... Skip the gag gifts, I think. I think generally just skip it. Skip the gag gifts unless the gag is like personal or sort of like weird and vintage. Yeah. Yeah. You also, I mean, you also like can't underestimate just the packaging making something not too expensive look better. Like if you can't afford an expensive panettone, for example, and you need to make a bunch of

gifts for somebody. You could make a bunch of granola and put them in ball jars and have a label maker and put a little label on them or even get spices and break them up into nice little containers with nice... I don't know. There's just ways, I think, to...

to level up a little thing so that it feels bigger. You could, you know, you can do is my partner is one of these, buy one of those engravers. They're not that expensive. And if you like, you can buy a pen or pencil and engrave it. Yeah. Yeah.

That is a great idea. So those actually work. I didn't know if it was just one. They work. Yeah, they work. I think I totally the idea of like leveling up small gifts. I really agree. And obviously, like really nice wrapping is very important to how people like feel when they open a gift.

And I think the other thing I would say, particularly when it comes back to, you know, not wanting to spend that much money is framing things nicely. You can take any sort of not very good quality iPhone photo, say like a landscape of somewhere that's like meaningful to you. And if you get that properly printed and you can do that really easily online and then you get it framed in like a beautiful wide mount. So like the mount is as large as possible.

the photo it looks like a proper bit of art but actually what you're working with is like a photo you took of a sunset out the window and

In a place that that person likes. Yeah. Louis, you wrote a column recently about gifts for stylish men. Notoriously, dads, brothers, boyfriends, husbands, nephews can be hard people to buy for. I know that's very broad brush and probably billions of exceptions to the rule. But do you have any sort of advice for buying stuff for men specifically?

Good ways to think about it. I think it's something we've decided that you just get the classics slightly elevated. I think you really just want a really nice white t-shirt, maybe like a hoodie, a black. We did a piece in HTSI on kind of why the black hoodie interest. There's a million types of black hoodie out there. Get one of those. Men shop of their own accord often in a very regular and repetitive way. They always seem to refine. I mean, I know what you mean. There are generalizations, but also it's backed up by people you talk to.

Right. So I would say, like, don't try and reinvent the wheel. I really think a kind of classic conservatism can go a long way. Yeah, that's good advice. My partner wants overalls, which I'm finding very hard to figure out the classic version of overalls. There's definitely the kind of sense of buying them also, they're

for the man they want to be the kind of the tool the adventurous thing which can either be really amazing or incredibly depressing and debilitating it's like when you get them a really like cool sporting gift or something and I asked like yeah I'm going to take up tennis this year and

And then it just sits there in the corner of your room. Yeah. I mean, I got one of my best friends like a portable gym kit once. It was so mean of me. And as I gave it, I was like, it's not what you think. I'm not doing it in that way. He was like, I hate your car. Oh, dude, he never used it. Oh, that's so good. Oh, that's so good.

Okay, so we've sorted out presents. We feel relatively organized. I would love to talk about how to have a nice time. I had a listener write in recently and she said that she loved we did this summer hacks episode. It was basically like how to have the summer of your lives. And I think it's really important to have a nice time.

And she wanted a winter hacks episode. She wanted to like how to actually what are the little things you can do to increase happiness in the winter? Her name is Anne Stukas. Shout out to Anne. Harriet, you fashioned your food and drink special all around this kind of how to enjoy the Christmas season, even though it can be stressful. So, yeah, let's start with you. What would you recommend? So, yeah, with the magazine, we sort of focused on sports.

small like self-indulgent things that you can do yeah I think that's probably the key right it's about sort of giving yourself a drip feed of nice little treats like don't leave it until it's

the 20th or like the 22nd, whenever we're, you know, breaking up for Christmas this year, because then you'll sort of look around, you've got like so much panic buying still to do, like, and the sort of like fun, festive, low stakes bit is gone. Yeah, you didn't put the candles up and you didn't sort of make it look nice. Exactly. So get your tree up early if you can, like start indulging yourself early. I mean, one of the tips I really loved from the issue was, you know, Tim Hayward says that

I actually had two alcohol-related ones and they were both great. One of them was that you should pre-mix a bottle of martini because it's one of the few spirits that you can pour from frozen and just keep that in the freezer. So when you just need like a tiny little treat moment, just give yourself a little martini from the freezer and that just feels like very decadent.

And then his other cocktail related tip was in the run up to Christmas, just like go to a lovely, in London, it would be like a hotel bar, just like a really opulent setting by yourself and just sit at the bar for an hour and drink one perfect cocktail, soak in the atmosphere, listen to the piano music.

So I think that's a lot of what it comes down to sort of like, it sounds so worthy, doesn't it? But like setting aside time at least a couple of times a week in December to just do something that feels like real.

really nice and self-indulgent like don't try and buy an enormous cheese board if you're just going to be picking it at home just like buy one really nice cheese and one really nice quince paste or something and just like get that out after dinner

and have a lovely time. Yes, there's the temptation to overdo it. You have to resist, basically. Which again... Well, I think that because then what happens is you do just end up splurging. But I think, I mean, I have to say, I don't historically really love this time of year. I find it very stressful for lots of reasons. It's the end of the year. You're very tired.

I think you absolutely should take a minute just to calm down and think about what actually matters, who you want to see and why. Don't accept every invitation. When someone says, oh, I have to see you before Christmas and you've not seen each other for 10 months. Right, exactly, that's

we'll see each other in January do what I mean it's like um it's interesting because it is a very particular kind of the wintry moment we're getting towards the solstice is encouraging us to kind of wind down and hide away yeah but I really just pick and choose curate don't say yes straight away when you get a text saying come to something don't say yes straight away and if you have to do things that you don't enjoy like sort of getting tricky gifts at the last minute like do it

online while you're watching a Christmas film because those films are best watched with like 30% of your attention anyway. Yeah, that's great. That's great advice. Yeah. I also like that do the nice version and a little less of it, right? Like,

Like even when you're preparing for Christmas dinner, like you don't need 4,000 sides. You don't need like a bunch of things on the table. You actually just need a lot of a few really good things on the table. Yeah. It's always slightly baffling that Christmas meal when you get to like the seventh side. You only get a little bit of each one. You get two past this. It's like, oh my God. Louis and Harriet, this was so much fun and so helpful. We will be back in just a moment for More or Less. More or Less

Welcome back for More or Less, where each guest says one thing they want to see more of or less of culturally. Harriet, what do you have? I have a less, and in saying it, I'm worried I'm going to shoot myself in the foot when I'm trying to commission the Christmas issue next year. But I would like to see far fewer, possibly no, like novelty Christmas recipes. I do not think that you should be making like

Nduya sausage rolls or like miso glazed turkey or like, you know, putting like weird things in like mince pies. And I think those things are commissioned out of like desperation by food editors to like have something new to say about Christmas. And I don't think they're good recipes. I think if you make them on the day, you will regret them. So I just don't

don't want them I think the magazine Christmas magazine should just be filled with like recipes for like turkey I don't know what the alternative is but I just think I just think like we need to not mess with things but say Harriet someone wants to make like a miso caramel apple pie or something are you saying just like do it but not on Christmas experiment at other times

I think there are so many good new recipes that get published and like occasionally just like a flavor combination that you hadn't thought of before just like does work and is incredible. And actually like miso is an example of something that often like does really bring something to dishes you might not have thought it would. But I just think in general, a lot of the Christmas recipe commissioning is driven not by like it being good recipes, but by us just having like five recipes

basic recipes that we cook at Christmas, which we need to say something new about. Just anxiety about keeping it fresh.

Although the miso glaze is like a classic cliche, isn't it? It's kind of everything gets a miso glaze and it's okay. It's like a coolie a while back. Everything gets a coolie and you hope it's okay. It's not okay. Wow. Okay. A lot of hate for miso today. I didn't realize it was already a cliche. I love miso. Louis is just procrastinating. I'm not doing this to spite you. You've made me think that what I'd like to see even more. It's more tuck duckin'.

Mortar ducking. Tuck ducking, which was a strange hybrid of turkey, duck and chicken that my mother bought for Christmas a few years ago that so appalled my sister, who's since turned vegetarian. I think it's a chicken in a duck in a turkey. They're stuck together. Yes. We did run a recipe for it in the magazine. Did it get any feedback? I mean, I just love the word. It sounds like a beautiful state, doesn't it? Far out somewhere you want to visit. And I

And I quite enjoyed it. And also, I just loved the outrage. I mean, I kind of, it's a conversation starter. Whatever you think of a Turk Dukkan, people will get. Yeah. Yeah.

So more is more turducken? More. More hybrids. Well, Harriet wants to trap us in silos. To everything that we've expressed throughout the course of this episode. Do less, don't let us stress you out. But also... Oh, no, I mean buying it. I know I don't hand make anything. I'm, again, rampant consumerism here. I'm like, go to a shop that makes you a turducken and let the conversation flow.

I think also there's so much family strife at Christmas. This would focus it on the tuk-tuk as opposed to like sibling relationships. You need to give people something to be angry about. Exactly. Not family secrets, not inheritance. A tuk-tuk is a great thing to find out. It's like having a puzzle at Christmas. It really keeps the pressure off of the cousin who's going down the wrong path. Yeah. Yeah.

I love these. This is the most chaotic more or less I've ever had. And I'm honestly loving it. You know, and related. I was going to say more telling people that your podcast is ending. So you just get a downpour of nice messages for listeners. We had that. I sort of let listeners know last week. And it was so sweet how many listeners responded. But what they didn't give me enough of.

That is so nice. It was so nice. It really. You can probably only do it once every couple of years. Honestly, yeah. Only a couple of times a lifetime, really. So I can't say do that more. But but what I asked them that they didn't give me enough of, but I want more of is questions. I ask listeners for questions like send me your questions and I will find the best colleagues and beyond to help give you interesting answers.

We got some really good ones. One guy asked for wine pairings for movies. Someone asked how in God's name you live each day like it's your last without losing your mind. Someone asked how to handle a mid-30s life crisis versus a midlife crisis, which I'm still figuring out.

who to ask to help answer. But they're really great and I want to hear more. So I hope that listeners send in more. And this was so much fun. This was such a fun episode. Louis and Harriet, thank you both so much for being on the show. Thank you, Naila. Thank you.

That's the show. Thank you for listening to Life and Art from FT Weekend. I have put links to the warring gift guides in the show notes. Louis' HTSI gift guide is for dreamers. Harriet's FT Weekend magazine guide is for practical people. Both are in the show notes and they're both excellent. Also, please do send your questions to me. I am on email at lilarap at ft.com, on Instagram at lilarap. All of that is in the show notes too. I love hearing from you.

I'm Lila, and here's my incredible team. Katya Kamkova is our senior producer. Lulu Smith is our producer and produced this episode. Our sound engineers are Breen Turner, Sam Jovinko, and Joe Salcedo with Original Music by Metaphor Music. Our executive producer is Topher Forges, and our global head of audio is Cheryl Brumley. Have a lovely weekend, and we'll find each other again on Monday.

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