I’ve found the best last-minute Christmas gift – and it doesn’t cost a thing

It’s too big to count as a little treat – and it usually goes viral online – but it’s the best reward possible for getting through 2024. Kat Brown reveals her favourite present (and you can make one, too)

Terrible date? Little treat. Horrendous bit of admin? Little treat (Getty)

Solidarity with everyone who is trudging listlessly through December and functioning on absolutely minimal brain capacity. And also to the employers who have to deal with us, dead-eyed husks mislaying the word for things like “probate” and landing instead on “proberty.” A friend burned their hand on a kettle this morning, having forgotten which bit gets hot.

It is at this time, as everyone wobbles their way towards the holidays and, for some, the dangerous balance of requirements between parents and small children, that the concept of what my friend Isobel calls “little treats” comes into its own. It is essentially bribery for adults. Terrible date? Little treat. Horrendous bit of admin? Little treat. The one thing you were asked to bring to a big festive meal over the holidays has sold out because you didn’t order it in time? Little treat. And a big treat for whomever you’re apologising to.

When I worked as a social media editor, I would bribe myself to schedule a fortnight’s worth of posts by playing the BBC’s 1980s adaptation of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe on YouTube, and positioning it in a small window on my computer screen.

The little treats can sometimes get out of hand. While writing my book last year, to an almost insanely tight deadline, I treated myself like the 1980s video game character Pac-Man – are we sensing an elder millennial theme here? – and took myself off to my local cafe do my chores, bribing myself with lunch and coffee after every task. Similarly, if I am on a deadline and cannot get myself organised, then it’s straight to the coffee shop across the road to padlock myself to a desk with tea and a millionaire’s shortbread.

It isn’t always food, although, since I gave up alcohol in 2019, it does occasionally feel as though coffee and party food are the only bribes that work. But then, it is supposed to be something that speaks to the distinctly non-rational parts of the brain, the child within – and for many children, that is chocolate, sweets and things that light up or go bang. “Just had a meeting where a chocolate orange was passed round for every decision made,” one person on Instagram told me – inspired.

Another is simply WFB – “working from bed” – while another has returned to day naps as a reward for keeping their toddler alive. One is bribing themselves with one chocolate for every 500 words written. And all praise to the woman keeping the end goal in sight with the promise of “a day on the sofa, no bra and every Christmas special I can think of.” Hats off to that plan.

I spent much of 2024 trying to talk myself out of buying something that would get me to drink more water – which I find incredibly dull and usually forget about unless it’s tea or coffee, which rather defeats the point, but which does give me insane amounts of energy if I ever remember to drink it.

In January, I found an absurdly expensive water bottle that lights up and flashes to remind you to drink – why yes, thank you; I do have ADHD – but couldn’t bring myself to buy it in case I used it for a week and then lost interest. This may have happened before. Eventually, my husband bought it for me for my birthday in November – my ultimate little treat to stop myself from turning into a desiccated husk and keep my caffeine intake down in the process.

Actually, he’s the king of little treats. He has a terrific wheeze that he has been patiently rolling out at Christmas since the 2020 lockdown. It’s a printed photobook in which he compiles all of the mundane photos we have sent each other on WhatsApp throughout the year. Even once duplicates and receipts are removed, it’s pleasingly deadly. There is no context or captions, just a document of the minutiae of life, car breakdown services and all.

If you hurry, you can make one too. It’s too big to count as a little treat – and it usually goes viral on Twitter, so perhaps Bluesky this year – but it’s the best reward possible for getting through 2024. Now, about January...

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