Buying gifts for the woman in your life is often a daunting task, there are so many options available and so many possible errors that can be made. We hope that this article provides you with some helpful ideas and guidance as you prepare for these coming festivities, and boy is Christmas coming upon us quickly this year, I am sure I only just packed away my sun lounger!

With regard to the common and avoidable errors - gentleman listen well; an ‘I need’ is not necessarily an alarm bell that rings with the sound of ‘please buy me this for Christmas’… As an example, a friend of mine was recently presented with a brand new vacuum cleaner for her Birthday present from her doting husband. The husband was surprised by my friends’ disappointment especially as only that same morning she had complained that the vacuum cleaner wasn’t working properly.

With a sinking little heart of gold my friend accepted the vacuum cleaner demonstrating as much gratitude and excitement that a girl could muster for a household cleaning device and then, later that day …we all giggled about it over a nice glass of vino!

To be clear, buying the woman in your world a set of new bath towels, a dishwasher, oven gloves or an iron might be a welcome, thoughtful spontaneous gift any other time of the year. However, on those special occasions such as Birthdays, Valentines Day and Christmas it is a love-kill! A new microwave is not going to score you many brownie points, neither, let’s be frank, is it going to contribute anything to your nocturnal activities!

So what does the woman in your life really want? Well, we are each our own unique, wonderful being so to talk generally is difficult but we did do a little research amongst our female followers and here offer you our most popular suggestions:

(1) The number one spot is a dressing gown. Every woman needs at least one fabulous dressing gown to add a touch of glamour to those cold mornings and warm, cosy evenings. Let the woman in your world embrace her feminine form, we guarantee that you will want to embrace her too in one of the dressing gowns from TheDressingGown.com

(2) Our ladies love to shop and with the economy cramping our fashion style, gift vouchers to our favourite clothing stores are a popular request to Santa this year. The prospect of an indulgent and complimentary day at the shops is a great start to any girls Happy New year!

(3) The jewellery option may seem like an easy one but shopping for jewellery can be a minefield. We recommend that you pay attention to the jewellery pieces that the woman in question wears the most regularly, you will quickly realise if she prefers silver to gold, if she likes adorning stones or plain pieces, either chunky, statement pieces or subtle, smaller designs. If you are still in doubt the best move you can make is to ask her friend or a family member for advice.

(4) Leisure pursuits is a broad category we know, but if executed correctly this option could provide a most thoughtful, considerate gift solution. You must ask yourself two questions:

• What has she always wanted or always enjoyed doing?

• Where has she always wanted to go?

We all would like to do more in our spare time such as taking up golf, learning a new skill such as photography or painting, becoming more IT savvy with an iphone, laptop, learning a new language or that destination that we have always wanted to visit, the answer is there somewhere!