How I won over a Scrooge-like New Yorker

Like all men, my dear friend Chris Black is an absolutely terrible person to shop with. He behaves only marginally better than a boy toddler. As we stood on the street outside Fortnum’s, this New Yorker’s greeting to me was, “I’m not really a Christmassy kind of person.”

How anyone could say this when they are about to enter the Father Christmas of department stores is beyond me. Fortnum & Mason, with its crimson carpets and twirling mahogany doors, counters groaning with marzipan and chocolate and its gracious staircases and red-coated butlers transport even the most jaded shopper to a gentler time when Christmas shopping was an “outing,” one that you dressed up for, before people had even imagined scroll-and-click retail.

It’s the kind of place where the salespeople are terribly helpful, gray-haired women with the demeanor of kindly hospital matrons. They do things like give you a joss stick to take home to try before you buy it so you don’t waste money. And a quick shout-out to Pamela in the perfume section who did this, leading me to later buy four boxes of Montroi Oud Monsoon incense sticks, which should be part of every Christmas hamper.

It is the kind of place where you can sit on a pale pink leatherette banquette at a Formica-topped table in the ice cream parlor, and order tea and toasted crumpets mid-morning, while gazing out of the (original, Georgian) sash windows at the bustle of Piccadilly below while a Union Jack flutters in the wind beyond. It’s the kind of place where you can’t help but be cheered by the Britishness of the other clientele – men wearing Husky jackets and holding silver-tipped walking canes, women with lived-in faces as rumpled as their cable-knit sweaters, ladies in fur headbands and velvety capes, provincial types “just up for the day.” It’s not the kind of place for people who “aren’t Christmassy.”

Still, Chris, who is a brilliant podcaster (co-host of How Long Gone) and fashion consultant, had at least leaned into the trad aesthetic for our shopping expedition. He was dressed as a pseudo-Englishman in a striped button-down, pink silk tie, jeans, navy sports jacket and a Barbour. “Wow,” I said as we walked inside, “you look like an unreconstructed 1980s Sloane.” He took this as a compliment and replied, “Yeah, in New York all the finance bros wear Barbours.”

We both grabbed gold shopping baskets with pale blue handles. “Let’s go to the hamper section,” Chris suggested, as he wanted to send one to his mom in Atlanta. I was hamper-focused too but, like most women, I could hardly bypass the other delights of Fortnum’s. “Let’s go to the tea section,” I countered, gesturing at the rows of timeless mahogany shelves with their huge tins, overseen by uniformed staff.

“I don’t drink tea.”

“Well, you should experience the tea counter,” I said. “There’s nothing like it anywhere else in the world.”

“Americans don’t drink tea,” he declared.

Against Chris’s will I made him go to the counter where I spent ages sniffing all the different teas, settling on two large bags of Victoria Grey, and took my time perusing the amazing array of silver strainers. When I put a Fortnum’s portable tea infuser in my basket for my daughter’s main Christmas present, Chris seemed surprised.

“That’s all you’re getting her?” he asked.

“Christmas is not about expensive presents in England,” I explained.

Chris emitted a sigh. “I have to go to the Phoebe Philo store for my wife’s gift.”

Since we were passing the chocolates section, I grabbed a box of the famous Rose and Violet Creams and suggested he get some chocolates for his mother. “She won’t eat them,” he said. “Let’s go to biscuits.”

Chris seemed more comfortable among the ginger nuts and fruitcakes, and chose a tartan-clad tin of shortbread for mom, while I took pots of cognac butter and lemon curd, which he thought was a pudding. When I told him we put it on bread and butter, he looked as though he might gag. “OK, hamper section?” he said hopefully, as I started investigating the honeys.

“Sure, and the Christmas decorations and wrapping paper?” I replied. “And cards?”

Chris looked anguished. “But they’re on the way,” I said, walking ahead.

A little later, as I put a small labrador dog bauble in my basket and added some tartan napkins and cards with bows on them, and showed him the adorable Winnie the Pooh porcelain that I think is an ideal gift for children (“I don’t have any children,” was Chris’s Scrooge-like response), and suggested we nip back downstairs for a jar of the famous Stilton, and perhaps grab a ham too, and why didn’t we pick up the long matches while we were at it, Chris fixed me with a weary gaze and said, “God, Plum, you really do this… properly.”

I was flattered, and before he could say “let’s go to the hamper section” one more time, suggested we stop by the perfumes. There was bound to be something for mom there. “Perfume departments make me feel like I’m in duty free at an airport.”

“This one isn’t like that,” I said. Chris dutifully followed me as I smelled every single candle and scent. He was soon entranced by the L.T. Piver perfumes and when I said, “Right, it’s late, let’s go get our hampers,” I could barely tear the man away.

Up on the fourth floor, Chris took mere seconds to choose a medium-sized square hamper with the famous black F&M monogram printed across the side. “My mom’s gonna love it,” he said excitedly. “Oh, and you know why this is a really good present?” I said. “Once your mom’s eaten everything, she can use it as a picnic basket. I’ve had mine 20 years.”

“Is that something people do here? Go on picnics?” asked Chris. I nodded. “I have never been on a picnic as an adult,” he said. Alas, poor Chris. My Christmas wish for this deprived podcaster is that he may one day go on a picnic in the English countryside, and that, eventually, he may one day become a person who is Christmassy.

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s December 22, 2025 World edition.