Alcohol Free Christmas Hamper (£60) from John Lewis

Well now, have you all seen the John Lewis advert? Does it leave you wondering about the ethical and ecological debate surrounding waking a bear mid-hibernation? Or wondering if Hazel and Fiver will make it to next Christmas? And what about that alarm clock – is it a digital one that can be set to a specific day, or does it go off every day?

Rabbit and Bear

Whether you love it, hate it, or just wish it had waited until December, there is no denying that John Lewis are gearing up for Christmas. A wonderful side effect of this is that they asked me if I would like to receive one of their hampers to review.

I recieved the Alcohol Free Hamper (£60) which is great as Mr B doesn’t drink. I opened it and was excited to see a range of styles and flavours of items, but all colour co-ordinated so that it looks great. On picking up a couple of things to investigate, I realised that there was more underneath.  Now, I have never received a Christmas hamper before so maybe my expectations were too low, but I assumed that they are only filled on the top layer and that the rest is packaging. Not the case! Look at how much was packed into this one:

Choc full of purple goodies

There’s Mediterranean (olive twists), Indian (spiced nuts), festive (mulled drinks, truffles and pudding), classic British (shortbread and tea), Middle eastern (cumin and corriander olives) and good solid chocolate fudge. A great range that’s useful for different situations and ages. At £60 I genuinely think this is good value. I’d definitely consider sending it to some relatives who I won’t get chance to see (though I might get an alcoholic version for them).

Ps. look at this small part of JL’s ingenious Christmas window display.

Thanks to John Lewis for the hamper. It was free but as always, I offered to write a review under the proviso that I would only give my honest opinion. I was genuinely surprised by how good this was (sorry JL…I should know better!)