Wooden Christmas gifts: a maker's guide to presents that get used

In brief: a useful present has a place in someone's day. At Timbermere, a small engraved board costs under £50 before delivery, and most boards cost £100 to £160. Ready-to-ship boards leave the workshop within one working day. A gift voucher arrives by email within one working day.

I make chopping boards for a living, so read this with one eyebrow raised. This is the guide I would want when buying for someone I love: which board they would use, what to put on it, and when to order so the post has a chance to get it there before Christmas.

What makes a good Christmas gift?

A good Christmas gift is one they are still using in March. Most of us have a few presents in a cupboard that never found a use. Then there are the things we reach for without thinking. I would rather give someone a present that joins that small, useful group, because using it is what keeps the person who gave it in mind.

Among Christmas gifts for the home, a wooden board has a fairly straightforward case. Anyone who cooks needs one, and a well-made board can last for decades with care. A thoughtful present does not need to be clever. It needs to be used.

Is a chopping board a good Christmas present?

A chopping board is a good Christmas present for someone who cooks most days. They will have a reason to use it for years. It is a poor present for someone who rarely cooks. For that person, I would look at a serving board instead, because it comes out when the family eats together, even if nobody has cooked.

I would check two things before choosing. First, the weight. A large end-grain board can weigh three kilos or more, and my heaviest butcher's block weighs eight, so think about who has to lift it to the sink. Then look at the board already in their kitchen. If they love it and it has simply worn out, a gift voucher towards restoring it may be the better present.

Which board suits whom?

Match the board to the person, not to the occasion: someone who cooks daily needs enough weight to keep it still. Someone who has people round needs room to serve. Names on the edge can suit a couple or a new home. If choosing for them feels like a guess, I would give a voucher.

Buy for how they live, and the right board is usually obvious.

How much should you spend on a Christmas present?

Under £50 buys a small serving or chopping board, with engraving available on several for £10; between £50 and £100 buys a larger serving board or a first end-grain board. Most of my boards cost £100 to £160. The largest boards and bigger butcher's blocks start at £165. All prices are before delivery, which is £9.97 an order.

Under £50: small Christmas gifts and stocking fillers

The smaller presents start with a solid ash kitchen turner, a flat wooden spatula, at £16. A set of six coasters in maple, walnut and cherry costs £35. The small serving boards and the Fulford chopping board, at £39.95, can be engraved for another £10. An engraved Fulford is therefore £49.95 before delivery. Small though they are, these pieces come from the same bench and get the same food-safe oil and wax as the larger work.

£50 to £100: a bigger everyday board

Between £50 and £100, you can choose a larger serving board, a single-slab chopping board cut from one piece of timber, or a round board that can be engraved. My first end-grain boards are £99. If someone has spent years chasing a thin board around the worktop, a more substantial board is a change they will feel.

£100 to £160: the boards most people reach for every day

Most of my boards cost £100 to £160. Edge-grain boards use long strips of timber and are lighter, stable and straightforward to live with. End-grain boards show the cut ends, often in a chequerboard pattern, and are heavier with a different feel under the knife. The effect on the knife's edge is smaller than you might have been led to expect; I explain what end grain does and doesn't do in the separate guide. The smallest of my butcher's blocks costs £125.

I have also written about why a handmade chopping board costs more. It explains where the money goes when a board is made one at a time, including when a cheaper board makes more sense.

£165 and over: the largest boards and blocks

The Checkley butcher's block is £165, made from sixty end-grain blocks of oak and walnut. The Yorkshire butcher's block is £299, nine centimetres thick, in cherry and sycamore. Both are made to order. The largest boards run to about 50 centimetres. At this end of the range, I hope a board stays in the family long enough for someone to ask who gets it next.

Under £50 buys a small board with their name on it. £100 to £160 buys the board they will reach for every day, for decades.

Can you have a chopping board engraved for Christmas?

Yes. A few of my boards can be engraved, including the Fulford chopping board and some small serving and round boards. Engraving costs £10, allows two short lines with a preview before you order, and adds no time to dispatch. You can find them in the personalised chopping boards collection, and read how the engraving works in the separate guide.

Engraving is text only. I cannot reproduce a photograph, a drawing or a child's handwriting. An engraved board is made for one person, so it cannot be returned simply because it is no longer wanted. Your rights if something is wrong with it still apply.

Should the engraving say Merry Christmas?

Usually not. An engraved Christmas gift gets used all year, and names outlast greetings. “Merry Christmas” looks a little out of place when the board comes out in February. I would put the greeting in the gift note and the names on the board. A family name, or two names and the year they set up their first kitchen, still makes sense ten years later. My guide to gifts for grandparents has more wording ideas.

What makes a good board for the Christmas table?

For the cheese course, choose a serving board you would be happy to leave on the table. For the turkey or roast, choose a large, heavy board with a juice groove to catch the liquid from the meat. Serving and carving need different things from a board, so decide which job matters before choosing.

For the cheese course

A wooden cheese board is simply a serving board with cheese on it. I make small ones under £40 and larger ones with room for a full spread. The small serving boards can be engraved, so one can become a personalised cheese board for the family table.

There are plenty of Christmas tree platters about in December. They are cheerful, and there is no harm in them. A plain serving board has the advantage of being useful at Christmas and for the rest of the year.

For carving the turkey

A carving board needs room for the bird and your hands, a juice groove to keep the liquid on the board, and enough weight or grip to stay still under the knife. The Meridian is 46 by 25 centimetres of oak and walnut, with a built-in juice groove and side grips. It suits a chicken, a crown or a joint. On some other boards, you can add a routed juice groove from the product page.

What do you give someone who has everything?

Give them something their kitchen does not have, or give them their own board back, better. Woven end grain or a nine-centimetre butcher's block may be a construction they have never owned. But I would also look at the old board they would never throw away, even though it is scored, grey and a little hollow in the middle.

I offer a Refresh Service for boards from any maker. I return them flattened, resurfaced, re-edged, cleaned and re-finished. Prices start from £45 for boards up to 30 centimetres, from £65 up to 50 centimetres and from £90 above that. End-grain blocks are quoted individually. The owner sends photographs, I reply with a fixed price, and they pay the postage to the workshop. Return postage is included.

A Refresh cannot be bought as a present on its own, because it needs their board and their say-so. You can give a gift voucher towards the work, leaving them to send the board when they are ready. That way, nobody has to go without their board over Christmas.

Are gift vouchers a good idea for Christmas?

Yes, when you are unsure which board they would choose, or have left it too late to post one. A Timbermere gift voucher arrives by email within one working day. It can pay for any board, engraving included, or go towards a Refresh of a board they already own. Delivery on the board is charged separately.

Vouchers come in £25, £50, £75, £100 and £150 and last two years from the day you buy them. They are used in one go, so any unused amount is lost. Choose an amount close to what they will spend. Forward the email, or print it and put it in an envelope. If the recipient has strong views about wood or size, a voucher leaves that choice to them.

When do you need to order for Christmas?

Ready-to-ship boards leave the workshop within one working day, engraved or not, and travel by Royal Mail. Royal Mail's posting dates are recommendations rather than promises. I cannot guarantee its service in the busiest week of the year, so I set my last order day a few days early to leave some room.

Made-to-order boards and commissions normally take three to four weeks. Christmas orders placed by the date below go first, with dispatch as shown in the table.

The workshop is closed on 24 and 25 December and reopens on Boxing Day, 26 December. Orders placed while it is closed are handled when it reopens. Postal deliveries may be slower until after New Year, so please allow extra time for your parcel.

Most of my boards are one-offs. Usually, the board on the page is the only one available. Once it sells, the page says sold out. If you would like another like it, write to me about a commission, which takes three to four weeks. If you have found the one, that is a better reason to decide early than any posting date.

Delivery costs £9.97 an order within Great Britain and Northern Ireland, with free delivery on orders of £200 or more. I cannot post further afield. December is the busiest month in my order book by a distance, so ordering earlier means relying less on the last posting days.

Ready to ship: order by Wednesday 16 December. Made to order: by Saturday 28 November. A voucher: order by Tuesday 22 December.

Are Timbermere boards made in Britain?

Yes. Every Timbermere board is made one at a time by me, Ewald, in North Yorkshire, where I have worked since 2019. I use nine British-supplied hardwoods. There is no production line, and nobody else making boards at the bench alongside me.

British-supplied is not the same as British-grown. The wood names give you an idea of where the timber grew, including English ash, American cherry and Canadian maple. I would rather be clear about that. For a gift from Yorkshire, made in Britain by one named maker, the boards made in North Yorkshire are together in one collection. You can also read about the nine woods.

A last word from the bench

A chopping board is quite an odd present really. You are giving somebody work, years of it. But for someone who enjoys cooking, that work is part of the pleasure, and a good tool helps. Whether the present is a board, a voucher or something from somebody else's bench, I would choose something made to stay.

If you have a question about a size, a wood or a date, write to the workshop.

— Ewald