A lot of housewarming gifts are bought on the way there: a bottle, a bunch of flowers, a hamper that is finished by the weekend. None of that is wrong. But a new home is mostly bare surfaces and boxes, and the gifts people keep are the ones that find a place in the house and stay there.
This guide answers the questions people in the UK ask about housewarming gifts and new home gifts: what to give, what is traditional, when to hand it over, whether to wrap it, and what to bring if their first Christmas in the house is coming up.
What are good housewarming gifts?
A good housewarming gift is for the house rather than the person, useful on an ordinary day, and easy to find a place for. In practice that means one of these:
- Something for the hall. The front door is the busiest spot in a new home for the first few weeks, so anything that helps there earns its place at once.
- Something for the kitchen, if they cook. Pick a simple tool for a job they do often, rather than an appliance that needs its own cupboard.
- A plant that tolerates neglect. Choose one that survives being forgotten for a fortnight.
- Something for the season. If they move in during the autumn, decorations for their first Christmas there.
- A card with a real offer in it. An evening of help with flat-pack furniture is worth more than most things you can buy.
A hamper, or one good object?
Most of those ideas are one object, chosen for this house. A hamper is the other common choice, and there is nothing wrong with one, but it is used up quickly and the gift goes with it. One object works the other way round: it gets unwrapped, someone decides where it lives, and from then on it is part of the house. If your budget stretches to one good thing or ten small ones, buy the one good thing.
Useful housewarming gifts
The most useful thing in a new home is somewhere to put things down. Keys, post and sunglasses drift around the hall until they are given one place to live, and a decorative bowl by the door does that job while looking like a choice rather than storage. Our key bowl ideas cover where one should sit.
Our paper mâché bowls are made by hand in Jaipur from recycled paper, so each one varies slightly. They are also light to lift, so moving one to dust underneath is no effort. Two sets to start with:
- A set of three bowls in sand-beige, chalky off-white and oatmeal, the smallest standing on three short legs, painted by hand, £89.
- A set of two footed bowls in a natural mud-colour finish, £79. The large bowl is about 14 cm tall and 28 cm wide.
Both are for dry use only. They hold whole fruit, potpourri, keys and post, but they are not waterproof and never go in a dishwasher. Wipe them with a dry cloth. If you give one, pass that on, or send the new owners our guide to looking after paper mâché.
If they cook, a kitchen tool is the other useful choice. Ours are manual vegetable choppers and dicers: some pull-cord, some push-down, all with metal blades and no plug or batteries. Wash them by hand. The blades are very sharp, so keep them out of reach of children.
What are traditional housewarming gifts?
One long-standing custom is bread, salt and wine, each given with a wish for the household. It is the gift George and Mary Bailey give a family moving into a new house in the 1946 film It's a Wonderful Life. A house plant is another traditional choice.
Traditions vary between families and faiths, so if the people moving in keep their own, follow it. Otherwise the spirit of the old customs is easy to keep: give something for daily life in the house, not something admired once and put away.
Are housewarming gifts still a thing?
Yes. Not everyone holds a housewarming party, and plenty of friends simply call round in the first few months instead. Either way, arriving at a new home for the first time with something in your hands is still normal, and nobody expects it to be expensive.
When to give housewarming gifts
If there is a party, bring it with you. If there is not, give it on your first visit to the new house.
There is no deadline. A gift that arrives a couple of months after the move is still welcome, and often more useful, because by then they know what is missing. If you are posting a gift rather than taking it, wait until they have the keys and a week or two to unpack.
Do you wrap housewarming gifts?
You do not have to, but it is usual, even if it is only a gift bag or a sheet of tissue. At a party, wrapping lets the hosts put presents aside and open them later without fuss. Always add a card with your name on it, because gifts that arrive mid-move get separated from the people who gave them.
For a paper mâché bowl, wrap it in tissue and keep tape off the bowl itself. If you want to put something inside, keep it dry: a bag of potpourri, or a few whole clementines or apples added when you hand it over. Nothing wet, and nothing cut or peeled.
What is a good housewarming gift for someone who has everything?
People who have everything usually have every useful thing already. What they rarely have is an object with a story they can tell in one sentence. Choose something made by hand whose origin you can name, or something for a season they have not yet decorated for in this house.
Avoid novelty for its own sake: a joke present is one more thing to find a cupboard for. A bowl made by hand in Jaipur from recycled paper fits the brief better: where it came from takes one sentence to tell.
What's a new home gift called?
It is called a housewarming gift or a housewarming present. "New home gift" means the same thing, and a new home card is the card that goes with it.
A host gift, sometimes called a hostess gift, is different: it is what you bring when you are invited round for a meal. If that meal is their first in a new house, one gift covers both.
Gifts for a first Christmas in a new home
A first Christmas in a new home often starts with a box of decorations that does not suit the new rooms, or with no box at all. That makes a set of hanging decorations a good new home gift in the autumn: easy to choose and used that same winter. Wrapped in tissue and stored somewhere dry, the pieces can come out again next Christmas.
Three handmade sets from our Christmas decorations:
- Mushroom ornaments, set of 4: red-capped toadstools with white spots, each on a jute cord, £19.99.
- Bell ornaments, set of 6: textured white bells with two bands of red dots, on braided red, black and green cords, £29.99.
- Christmas tree ornaments: tree shapes in white, mustard, navy and sky blue, each dotted and hung on a jute loop, £49.99.
Each piece is made by hand, so each one varies slightly. They are decorations, not toys. Keep them indoors, away from heaters and open flames: London Fire Brigade advises keeping all decorations away from naked flames.
If you would rather give something for the house than for the tree, a bowl on the hall table with a few whole clementines in it does a lot with very little through December. There are more ideas in what to put in a decorative bowl for Christmas.
Before you buy
If you are not sure which bowl suits their home, get in touch and tell us about the room. If it turns out not to suit, our refund policy gives you 30 days from the day your order arrives to tell us, and returns from within the UK are free.
For ideas on where the bowl goes once it has been unwrapped, read how to style a coffee table with a decorative bowl.
