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Outdoorsy Christmas presents - our top ten

December 5, 2013
by Laura Canning | seasonal

Reinbeer Last year , we left it until the last minute. This year, we shall not! Most unusually for our procrastination-prone personalities, we’re already looking at Christmas presents for 2013 – both for ourselves (most of the list) and for others (a grudging corner of the list). We buy on Friday. At night and by net, naturally, we're not mad.

As always, we could spend hundreds if not thousands buying new outdoorsy and accommodation-related toys and gadgets for those we love (us, mostly), but in the interests of paying rent and being able to eat in January, we’ve narrowed our list of wants down. Thusly, ten gifts and gadgets for Christmas for all sorts and all budgets:

Under £5

Gandalf's got talent : We love this. Sprinkle on your campfire to turn it into a multi-coloured magic thing as different colours come up (man). When others wander over to ask how on earth you’ve done that, look puzzled and a) pretend you don’t know how the colours got there or b) pretend you can’t see the colours at all. Mwhahahahaha.

Buy for : Anyone. Truly fab and only £1.99.

Shots : Another pressie we’re buying forthwith for its portability, price and general brilliance. These mini dram cartridges can be filled with your favourite shots to fit into a cartridge bag or belt – ‘but not into your gun’, the blurb solemnly reminds our American friends. £4.50.

Buy for : Anyone you would like to make paranoid about their drinking habits. Mwhahahahaha again.

Campervan colouring. Pic from author Kludo White. Under £10

Stay in the lines : We’ve picked a clutch of campervan gifts for this blog, because we love our VWs, because this month they're ceasing production FOR EVER *weep*, and because these pressies are just fab. Our first is one you can pretend is just for the kids: a campervan bok with 50 A4 campervan and related pictures to colour in, and which suits all ages: one reviewer said a picture of an engine in this book kept her husband busy ‘for ages’. Bless. £6.71.

Buy for : Your other half, as a ‘joke’. Buy markers/crayons too and bet yourself how long it takes for them to start.

She pees : The Shewee allows those of the female persuasion to pee standing up if hiking, doing other outdoor pursuits where no loo might be handy, or if they just want to write their name in the snow. Opinion is divided among the female contingent in the Pitchup.com office about whether we’d use these – our initial reaction was ‘Ewww’, changing to ‘Hmmm’ in a couple of cases once we read the testimonials. Generally though, we are too unsure/aware of our dexterity/lack of when drunk to be fully confident these would work, although we are fully aware this is probably our problem rather than the Shewee’s. £9.99.

Buy for : A co-worker in Secret Santa; bonus points if they’re a prudish type.

Campervan gift tin. Pic by Fosters Foods. Yums : Christmas campervan tin with clotted cream fudge and toffee! Eat the yummy sweets then have a campervan tin to keep! Those lovely people at Fosters also do a campervan filled with butter shortbread and one with jelly babies (we like the shortbread one best, Santa). From £6.55.

Buy for : Self. Unapologetically.

VW USB. Pic from Auto Regalia Ltd. Under £20

Hook-up : £19.99 for a 4GB memory stick is of course pushing the budget boundaries a bit, but who can resist this gorgeousness as a gift and the added bonus of making colleagues think the recipient is even more of a VW, er, 'fan' than before? (We don’t have such troubles in the Pitchup.com office, of course.)

Buy for : Someone who doesn’t know what a memory stick is for. You can then ‘borrow’ it, while expressing regret that your generous attempt to help them become more computer aware has backfired into a non-present. We're aware there's a Mwhahahahaha pattern developing here.

Under £25

Dashing through the snow : A snow scooter! Natch it might not, strictly speaking, actually need snow if none turns up on the very day your new toy arrives; we suggest finding a steep hill and sliding down the muck if not. £23.95.

Buy for : Kids, godkids, nephews and nieces. You'll want an excuse to be out in public with it.

Under £55

LED’s buy this : This section should have been ‘Under £50’, but this is so festively purty we think it’s worth the extra few quid, especially as there’s free postage. We must admit we’re not madly into Christmas trees – too much tinsel and needle shredding, not to mention the invariable and annoying over-excitement always from one person in the household when it comes to 'dressing the tree' (bah humbug) – but we reckon this LED rope one is treetastic. £54.50.

Inside the eleMMent Palazzo. Pic from Marchi Mobile. Under £60

Zzzzz : One should always have a hammock handy, even if one has to loop it outside the pub around two lampposts  placed an enticing amount apart. More budget-friendly hammocks are of course available, but save those for the kids (they’ll only get jam and crumbs all over them anyway), and treat self to this styley stripey number from the Glam Camping Company. £58.

Under no circumstances unless we win the lottery (sob)

How would you like a luxury motorhome bus with its own garage ? It can be yours for around £1.2 million, possibly knocked down to a million or so as it was Out Last Season. Or how about this year’s gold eleMMent Palazzo, also with its own garage (and rooftop terrace and pop-out bar): yours for £2 million? We admit there might be slight difficulty manoeuvring either down country roads in Cornwall (that’s why you bring a car in the self-contained garage), but our overriding concern is HOW MANY TIMES we have to ask Santa before we find the keys to our own luxury motorhome in our stockings on Christmas morn. Weep.

We may (possibly) have a few more pressies to buy than these, so if you've spotted any good ones, let us know below. Share the love etc - and help us build our own list for Mr Claus.

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