British Christmas Gifts in Canada: Stocking Fillers, Hampers and Sending Christmas From the UK

Nobody has ever cried over a scented candle.

A grown adult can go very quiet over a Wispa, though. I have watched it happen at the till. The bar comes out of the bag, the wrapper gets turned over once, and for about four seconds the person holding it is twelve again and it is raining somewhere in the Midlands. That is the whole case for a British Christmas present in Canada, and it costs less than the candle.

So this is the gift guide I would give you across the counter. Stocking bits under $10. Things under $25 that get a real reaction. What to buy the homesick one, the tea one and the kids. The Christmas shelf, which is the fullest it has ever been. How to build a hamper out of our shelves without it looking like a shopping bag with a bow on it. And the question nobody online seems to answer: how family back in the UK can send Christmas to someone in Canada without a customs bill turning up before the present does.

Everything below is from our Christmas collection or the everyday shelves, and we send it from Halifax to anywhere in Canada. If you want the food side of the day as well, the full Christmas food guide is the place to start. This one is about presents.

Stocking fillers under $10

A stocking has rules. Small, slightly daft, nothing that needs an explanation at seven in the morning. It is also the one place where the Brit in your life wants the cheap stuff, not the fancy stuff. A Freddo means more in a stocking than it has any right to.

The ones I would reach for first, all under $10 and a good number under $5:

• Cadbury Freddo, 19.5 g of frog. Buy several. One is a cruelty. There is a four pack for the household that has learned this the hard way.
• Cadbury Wispa, Wispa Gold and Twirl Orange, the single bars. The 45 g Dairy Milk too, because a stocking Dairy Milk is a different object from a Christmas Day Dairy Milk.
• Curly Wurly four pack. Not technically a single, but it comes apart, and so does the recipient's dental work.
• Millions, the little 55 g tubes: Vimto, blackcurrant, raspberry, strawberry, apple, bubblegum and watermelon. Vimto is the correct answer and I will not be taking questions.
• Bonds of London Pear Drops. A bag of them weighs next to nothing and smells of every sweet shop you were ever sent into with a pound coin.
• Bonds Mint Humbugs and Barley Sugar for the grandparent in the house, and Cough Candy for the grandparent who insists it is medicinal.
• Fry's Turkish Delight, the most divisive 51 g you can hand a person. Know your audience.
• A Galaxy hot chocolate sachet. One sachet. It is the stocking equivalent of a nice sit down.
• Fox's Rocky five pack, for anyone who remembers the lunchbox years.
• Aunty's Spotted Dick, 190 g, under $5, and yes, the Canadian in-laws will react exactly how you think. That is half the gift.

The whole stocking-sized shelf, Christmas shapes included, is in stocking stuffers.

Under $25: the present that gets a real reaction

Under $25 gets you the full-size thing. The box of 80. The tub that sits on the counter until February and gets looked at every morning. Sweets are for the stocking. This is the present with their name on the tag.

Eighty tea bags is the obvious one and I will come back to it. After that:

• Cadbury Dairy Milk, the 180 g bar. Not the one from the Canadian supermarket. If the person you are buying for has ever said "it tastes different here" and been told they are imagining it, they are not imagining it. Hand it over and watch them check the wrapper.
• Cadbury Drinking Chocolate, the 500 g tub. A tub, not a sachet. The difference between a gift and a hint.
• Bonds of London Clotted Cream Fudge and Dairy Toffee together. Two bags, one small argument about which is better. (Fudge.)
• McVitie's Dark Chocolate Digestives and Milk Chocolate Hobnobs. Buy both so nobody has to be the bigger person.
• Cadbury Dairy Milk Wholenut, 180 g, for the person who has been quietly let down by every chocolate bar with nuts in it since they landed.
• Cadbury Bournville, 180 g, for the one in the family who says they prefer dark and has never once been offered any.

Any two of these in a gift bag is a present. Three is a hamper, and we will get to that.

What do you get a homesick Brit for Christmas?

Pudding. The answer is pudding.

Christmas in Canada is lovely and I chose it. But December here does not smell of a sponge pudding steaming away in the microwave, and in my experience that is the smell people go quiet about, more than turkey, more than anything on the tree.

Aunty's puddings are the fix. 190 g each, under $10, in Sticky Toffee, Golden Syrup, Chocolate Fudge, Strawberry and the Spotted Dick we have already discussed. My pick is Golden Syrup, though I am aware Sticky Toffee outsells my opinion. Add the Ambrosia Devon Custard and you have given someone a school dinner, in the good sense.

Ambrosia also does a Chocolate Custard, a Creamy Rice Pudding and a Macaroni Pudding. The chocolate one is a sauce pretending to be a pudding and I respect it. The macaroni one is a pudding made of pasta, which Canadians find alarming and Brits find Tuesday.

Then the dry goods. Bird's Custard Powder for the one who makes their own and has views on skin. Bird's Raspberry Trifle for the one who will build a trifle on Boxing Day and defend it from all comers. And for Christmas itself, the small Thursday Cottage Christmas pudding, which is a whole Christmas pudding for one person, which is the number of people in most Canadian houses who want one.

For the one who judges your tea

You know the person. They watch you make it. They do not say anything, but they watch.

For them, a box of 80. Barry's Master Blend is my pick and the one I would put in a hamper without asking. Barry's Irish Breakfast is for the person who wants the spoon to stand up in the mug. Orange Pekoe, if that is the box they already know and love. The Decaf Blend, 80 bags, is for the one who says "not after four" and means it, and Barry's Gold loose leaf is for the one with a pot and a strainer and opinions. Bewley's Irish Afternoon rounds it off, if the household has a Bewley's loyalist, and they do exist.

If the person is a Yorkshire Tea person, and they will have told you, there is the box of 80, the Gold, and this year's flavoured ones, Sticky Toffee Brew and Victoria Sponge Brew, which are a stocking present and a conversation in one box.

All of that sits under $25, which is the sort of present that gets used every single morning and thought about every time the kettle goes on.

Pair it with something to dunk. Milk Chocolate Hobnobs if you want to be popular. Gingerbread Milk Chocolate Digestives if you want to be seasonal. Nairn's Gluten Free Chocolate Oat Cookies if the tea drinker is gluten-free, and that is the one dietary line you are getting from me, because the rest of this article is chocolate.

The rest of the hot drinks shelf is in our tea and hot drinks collection.

For the kids, and the Canadian cousins

A Freddo is small enough to eat whole, which is the first thing a child will do with it. At under $5 you can give one to every child at the table, including the ones who are forty.

Millions go down well with kids who like a sweet you can pour. Cadbury White Buttons, the Milkybar Giant Tube and the Milkybar Reindeer cover the white chocolate faction, which in my experience is loud. A Galaxy hot chocolate sachet each, with a bag of Cadbury Oreo Bites for dunking, is a snow-day kit that fits in a stocking.

For bigger kids, the Toffee Crisp four pack, a Curly Wurly, and a bag of Twirl Bites, which a teenager will pretend not to like and then finish in the car.

My two are split, as they are on most things. My daughter is the one who looked at HP on French toast as though I had offered her a roasted unicorn. My son would eat the Freddo, the wrapper and the stocking. Buy for both types. The sceptics come round eventually, usually when nobody is looking.

The whole sweets collection is fair game here, and Bonds of London does the pick-and-mix end of it.

The Christmas shelf: presents that already look like presents

Everything above is from the everyday shelves. This is the shelf that only exists in December, and this year it is the fullest it has ever been.

The Walker's Nonsuch Luxury Toffee Selection With Hammer is the present that gets opened first, because it comes with a hammer. The Toffee Duo and Toffee Twin are the stocking-sized versions, hammers included, and the Assorted Toffees and Chocolate Eclairs gift box and the Liquorice Toffees gift box are for the person who does not need tools.

Paddington has a whole corner. The Paddington Bear Suitcase Tin with shortbread and English Breakfast tea bags is the one I would give a child's grandparent, the bear-shaped tin of shortbread is the one I would give the child, and there are tins of milk chocolate buttons and fruity gummy sweets for the in-between ages. The tins get kept. That is the trick of them.

For the grown-ups: the Guinness Chocolate Truffles, the Baileys Chocolate Truffles and the Toblerone Truffles gift box are the three cartons I would line up for a dinner-party host. The McVitie's Jaffa Cake and Jonuts Tree is a box shaped like a tree full of Jaffa Cakes, and I have yet to meet the person who needed that explained twice. The Cadbury Biscoff Baubles hang on the tree and get lighter as December goes on.

And the big one. A tub of Quality Street, Cadbury Heroes, Cadbury Roses or Celebrations, which is the present most people in this country have not been given since they left. Each tub page lets you have it opened and nested for the post, so it travels in one piece. Which one is the right one is a question that has been going on longer than any of us can remember, and the argument is part of the gift.

Then the jars. The Diddly Squat Farm Piccalilli, the Real Ale Chutney and the Chilli Jam are the three I would give a person who has a cheeseboard and a view on it. If the name means something to them, you already know why.

How do I build my own British hamper?

I am going to let you in on something. A hamper is a shopping bag with a plan.

This is how I would do it.

1. Pick the person, not the theme. "A pudding hamper" is a theme. "Dad, who ate an Aunty's pudding every Sunday for a decade and now lives in Moncton" is a hamper.
2. Heavy at the bottom. Custard, drinking chocolate, the box of tea. These are your foundations. Nothing survives being underneath a 500 g tub of Cadbury Drinking Chocolate, so put the tub in first.
3. Biscuits and big bars in the middle. Hobnobs, the 180 g Dairy Milk, Bournville if you have a dark chocolate person. They stand up nicely and hide the fact that the box is a box.
4. Sweets in the gaps. Pear Drops, Rhubarb and Custard, Sherbet Lemons, Mint Humbugs. Bonds bags are soft and go anywhere. This is also where the Freddo lives.
5. One thing to argue about. Every good hamper has one. A Fry's Turkish Delight does the job, and so does a tub of Quality Street next to a tub of Roses.

Three I would build without thinking:

• The Sunday pudding box. Two Aunty's, two Ambrosia, Bird's Custard Powder, the small Thursday Cottage Christmas pudding on top. For the person who still says "what's for afters".
• The brew box. Barry's Master Blend, Barry's Decaf, Milk Chocolate Hobnobs, Dark Chocolate Digestives, a bag of Twirl Bites for the biscuit tin. Add a Galaxy sachet for the one person in the house who does not drink tea and feels left out.
• The corner shop. As many Bonds of London bags as the box will take, a handful of Millions tubes, Curly Wurlies, Freddos, and a Wispa Gold on top like a star on a tree. For the person who spent their pocket money badly and well.

Wrap it in whatever is in the drawer.

Can my mum in the UK post me a Christmas hamper?

She can. Whether she should is the better question.

This is the bit nobody seems to write down, so I went to the people who actually run the border rather than to a forum. Canada Post and the Canada Border Services Agency both publish the rules for gifts coming into Canada by mail, and they are clearer than you would expect.

The number to remember is sixty dollars. A gift sent by a friend or relative to someone in Canada, worth CAN$60 or less, comes in with no duty and no tax. Over $60, you pay duty and tax on the amount above $60, not on the whole parcel. So a hamper your mum values at $90 gets taxed on $30 of it. Canada Post then adds a handling fee of CAN$9.95 to any mail item the border agency has decided is dutiable or taxable. The wording is on Canada Post's customs page, and the gift rules themselves are on the CBSA's page.

Four things catch people out.

• It has to be a gift from a person. CBSA says a friend or relative must send it personally and include a card or other notice saying it is a gift. No card, no exemption. Tell your mum to put the card inside the box, not just the sentiment.
• Anything sent by a business does not count. If she orders from a British website and has it shipped straight to your door, that is not a gift in CBSA's eyes, whatever the receipt says. The same goes for tobacco, alcohol and advertising material: none of those qualify, at any value.
• You cannot stack the allowances. There is a separate CAN$20 exemption for most low-value items. It cannot be combined with the $60 gift exemption to get to $80. Sixty is sixty.
• Food has its own rules. The gift rules are about value, tobacco and alcohol. What may come through the post as food is a separate question for the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, so if the box is going to hold anything beyond sealed sweets and chocolate, that is the place to check before the tape comes out.

Then there is the postage. It is paid in pounds, it is paid before the box leaves, and it is paid on top of whatever CBSA and Canada Post decide at this end. Royal Mail publishes the current price and the last posting date for Canada, and they are worth looking up before the box is packed, not after.

Or your mum opens our website, picks what she wants, pays in Canadian dollars and types in your address. The parcel never crosses a border. There is no customs form, no $60 line, no handling fee, no card to remember, and the chocolate in the box was already in Halifax. The delivery details are on our shipping page.

I am biased. I own the shop. But I would say the same thing if I did not, because the gap between finding out there is a bill and actually getting the box is where a lot of the joy goes.

Gift cards, for when you have run out of guesses

Some people are impossible. They have the tea. They have the custard. They buy their own Freddos, in bulk, with no shame.

For them, an online gift card from us, or a gift card for the Halifax shop if they are local. It is also the quiet solution for family in the UK who like the sound of ordering from Halifax but do not know whether their daughter has gone off Dairy Milk Fruit & Nut (she has not, nobody has). They buy the card, she does the choosing, and nobody has to guess between Master Blend and Irish Breakfast from the other side of the Atlantic.

If the person you are buying for already shops with us, GBS Rewards gives them money back on the British food they were buying anyway, which is the kind of present that keeps going after the wrapping paper is in the bin.

Questions people ask us

What is the $60 gift rule for parcels sent to Canada from the UK?

A gift sent by a friend or relative, worth CAN$60 or less, comes into Canada with no duty or tax. Over $60, duty and tax apply only to the amount above $60, and Canada Post adds a CAN$9.95 handling fee to anything assessed as dutiable or taxable.

Does the parcel have to say it is a gift?

Yes. CBSA requires that a friend or relative send it personally and include a card or other notice saying it is a gift. Without that, it is not treated as a gift.

Can my family order from a UK shop and have it shipped to me in Canada as a gift?

Not for the gift exemption. Items sent by a business do not qualify, whoever paid for them. Ordering from a Canadian shop like ours means there is no border to cross at all.

What is the best cheap British stocking filler?

A Freddo, and more than one of them. After that, a tube of Vimto Millions and a bag of Bonds Pear Drops. All three are under $5.

What would you give someone who has everything British already?

Something from this year's Christmas shelf that did not exist last year: a Paddington tin, the Jaffa Cake tree, a Diddly Squat jar, or a box of Yorkshire Tea Sticky Toffee Brew. Failing that, a gift card and the dignity of choosing for themselves.

Do you ship British Christmas gifts across Canada?

Yes. Everything in this guide goes out from our shop in Halifax to any Canadian address, and the particulars are in our delivery policy.

If you are reading this from the UK with the parcel tape already out, put it down and put the kettle on. Halifax has it from here.