Letterbox Christmas gifts are the easiest presents of the season to get right: a slim box of something good, posted to their door, that slides through the letterbox with the ordinary post so nobody has to be in. Mine are baked to order in Peterborough and posted anywhere in the UK: Christmas cookie boxes, peppermint brownies, lemon cranberry cake and rum fruit cake slices, from £18 a box, with Royal Mail postage added at checkout. This is my guide to sending Christmas gifts by post in the UK this year: what to choose, what it costs, when to order, and how to win Secret Santa without leaving the sofa.
I bake alone, in small batches, from a registered home kitchen in Peterborough, using generational recipes. I learned at my gran's side from about twelve, in a kitchen that catered birthdays and weddings, and I was taking my own orders at fifteen. A box of something homemade on the doormat is, to my mind, about as Christmas as presents get. This guide is that habit, made easy for you.
What is a letterbox Christmas gift?
A letterbox Christmas gift is a festive present packed slim enough to travel as a Royal Mail large letter, so it fits through a standard UK letterbox and arrives with the post. Nobody signs for it, nobody waits in, and it is on the mat when they get home, exactly like a Christmas card, only better to eat.
The size is set by Royal Mail rather than by me. A Large Letter can be up to 35.3cm long, 25cm wide and 2.5cm thick, and weigh up to 750g. Every Christmas box I post is built inside those limits, which is why the cookies lie in a single layer, the cake comes as thick slices rather than a whole round, and nothing towers.
What makes it a Christmas gift rather than a parcel is everything else: festive bakes, a hand-written card, and the small thrill of a present that arrived on its own.
Why send Christmas gifts by post in the UK?
Because the British have been posting Christmas to each other for nearly two centuries, and a letterbox gift is the tastiest version of the habit. The V&A records that Henry Cole sent the first Christmas card in 1843, printing a thousand copies that could be personalised with a hand-written greeting. The same article counts around a billion Christmas cards bought in the UK every year.
The post is busier at Christmas than at any other time, and Royal Mail plans for it. This autumn it announced it is recruiting almost 22,000 temporary workers to help transport, sort and deliver the additional parcels and mail it expects over the festive period. That is a lot of people carrying a lot of presents, and it is one more reason to order early rather than late.
And we shop for presents online now as a matter of course. More than a quarter of retail sales in Great Britain happen online, according to the Office for National Statistics' internet sales series. A letterbox gift is what that habit looks like when the present is homemade: ordered from your phone, baked for the date you pick, and posted to their door.
(Henry Cole's cards could carry a hand-written greeting, and so can my boxes: add a message at checkout and I write it on the card)
Which letterbox Christmas gifts can I send from Sploffin?
Six Christmas boxes go through the letterbox this year, five at £18 and the rum fruit cake slices at £23, all baked to order and posted from 1 November. Every one is on my Christmas menu, with its own section, and every one fits a Royal Mail large letter.
The vanilla butter cookies with glacé cherries are rich vanilla butter cookies, piped by hand, each finished with a glacé cherry pressed on top. There are 25 in a box for £18, which works out at about 72p a cookie. This is the biscuit tin on the sideboard, the one that empties while everybody insists they have only had two.
The snowflake gingerbread cookies are gingerbread cut into snowflakes and iced by hand, eight to a box for £18. Decorated gingerbread is an old British present: English Heritage tells how gingerbread fairings were thought to bring good luck, and how in 1833 the future Queen Victoria gave her spaniel, Dash, gingerbread for Christmas. Mine are intended for people, though I make no promises about the dog.
The Christmas tree matcha cookies are the unusual one: the green comes from matcha in the dough, so it runs all the way through the tree. Sixteen to a box for £18, and the box to send to the friend who already owns every candle in the shop.
The white chocolate peppermint brownies are fudgy white chocolate brownies with crushed peppermint candies scattered over the top, six to a box for £18. If the person would rather have chocolate all year round, my guide to letterbox brownies by post covers the six everyday kinds.
The lemon cranberry pound cake is a dense lemon pound cake with cranberries baked through it, finished with lemon icing: a Christmas limited edition, four thick slices boxed flat for the letterbox, £18.
The Jamaican rum fruit cake slices are four thick-cut slices of my rum-soaked cake, made with dried fruit soaked for months in Jamaican rum and cherry brandy, at £23 a box. It is never iced, and it contains alcohol. The whole six inch cake is £45 and posts as its own parcel; its story is in my Christmas fruit cake guide.
Not everyone wants snowflakes. My everyday Letterbox Cookies make a fine Christmas present too: six to a box for £18, in butter, butter pecan, chocolate chip, double chocolate, and oatmeal and raisin, one kind or half and half of two. They are not tied to the Christmas dates, so they can go out whenever you choose.
Minced pies are coming soon rather than on sale, and the minced pies section takes waiting-list signups, with one email on the day they go on sale.
Ready to choose? Open the Christmas menu, add a box to your basket, pick the day you would like it to land and write your message for the card. Postage is added at checkout, and collection in Peterborough is free.
What are the best letterbox Christmas gifts for each person on the list?
Match the box to the person, not the price, since five of the six are the same £18. For a traditionalist, the glacé cherry butter cookies. For the photographer of every meal, the snowflake gingerbread. For the friend who has everything, the matcha trees. For a chocolate person, the peppermint brownies. For a tea drinker, the lemon cranberry slices. For anyone who grew up with a proper fruit cake, the rum fruit cake slices, which are the grown-up one.
Letterbox gifts for her or for him come down to the same question: what would they reach for first at a party? Answer that and you have the box. For grandparents, a fruit cake or butter cookies arrive as something familiar, done properly. For a teacher, a neighbour or a colleague, a cookie box says thank you without anybody needing to find room on a shelf.
Distance is where letterbox Christmas gifts shine brightest. The family you will not see until spring, the friend who moved to the other end of the country, the student in a shared house: each of them gets a present on the mat, not a card saying they missed a delivery.
Secret Santa gifts by post: what works under £25?
A letterbox bake is close to the perfect Secret Santa gift by post. Any £18 Christmas box plus £3.60 Royal Mail postage comes to £21.60 delivered, comfortably inside a £25 budget, and it is something people actually eat rather than a novelty mug for the back of the cupboard.
It also keeps the secret. There is never an invoice or a price inside a gift, and the card is hand-written by me, so you can sign it from Secret Santa and nobody will recognise your handwriting. Send it to their home, or to the office if the office takes post, and it arrives on its own.
Two practical notes. If you do not know the person well, read my allergen information first, because every bake contains common allergens, and the rum cake contains alcohol, so it is not one for a stranger. And if you are the organiser sending several, each address is its own order, with its own card and its own postage.
Sending one now? Choose a box on the Christmas menu, write "From your Secret Santa" in the message and pick the day. I will do the rest.
How much does it cost to send Christmas gifts by post?
A letterbox Christmas gift from me costs £18 a box, or £23 for the rum fruit cake slices, plus Royal Mail 1st Class postage of £3.60 a box as a large letter. So most boxes arrive anywhere in the UK for £21.60, and the rum cake slices for £26.60. You see the full price at checkout before you pay.
The whole rum fruit cake is heavier and goes as a Royal Mail 1st Class small parcel at £5.45. If you would rather use a courier, DPD next day is priced by weight from £6.95 for a box up to 2kg, to mainland UK, and it puts the Christmas boxes for one address into one parcel. Christmas bakes travel on their own date, so if your basket also holds everyday bakes, those go as a separate parcel with their own postage.
When should I order letterbox Christmas gifts?
Order now for the widest choice of dates. Christmas orders are open from 1 October, every Christmas bake is baked and sent from 1 November, and last orders close on 18 December at 11:59pm. At checkout you choose the day you would like the Christmas bakes in your order to land.
By Royal Mail, that date is the day I aim for and Royal Mail sets the exact day. Its 1st Class service aims to deliver the next working day, Saturdays included, and aims is the honest word, which is why I post in good time rather than on the last possible day. By DPD, it arrives on the day you pick, to mainland UK.
I bake alone, in small batches and in limited numbers, so the earlier you order, the more choice of date you get. If the date matters, and at Christmas it usually does, do not leave it to the final week.
Does someone need to be home for a letterbox Christmas gift?
No, not when it goes by Royal Mail. A letterbox Christmas gift travels as a large letter, so it goes through the door with the ordinary post and waits on the mat for whoever lives there. Nobody signs, nobody waits in, and nobody spends Christmas Eve at a depot.
The whole fruit cake is a small parcel, and DPD is a courier that delivers on the day you choose. If the whole point is that nobody has to be in, any of the six letterbox boxes by Royal Mail is the one to pick.
Can I add a message, and will they see the price?
Yes to the message, and no to the price. Add your words at checkout and I hand-write them on a card that goes in the box, free. There is never an invoice or a price inside a gift, so the person opening it gets the bake and your words, not the receipt.
If a blank card makes your mind go blank, the checkout offers a few openings to start from, such as thank you, thinking of you and congratulations. At Christmas, I find the shortest messages land best: their name, a line that sounds like you, and your name, or Secret Santa if you are keeping it.
How long do Christmas bakes keep after they arrive?
Every box carries a best-before date on its label, so the answer for your box is printed right on it. The bakes I post are the keeping kind: butter cookies, gingerbread, brownies and dense slices of cake are chosen because day two and day three are good days.
On UK labels, best before dates relate to quality, while use by dates relate to safety, so my date tells you how long the bake will be exactly as I meant it. The rum fruit cake is the long keeper of the range. Keep everything in its box or an airtight tin, somewhere cool, and well away from the radiator, which at Christmas is always trying to help.
A plain word on allergens
Christmas baking gathers allergens: cereals containing gluten, eggs, milk, nuts and sulphites among them. UK food law requires 14 allergens to be declared, and when food is sold online, allergen information has to be given before the purchase is completed and again when the food is delivered.
Every box I post carries a full ingredient and allergen label. My kitchen handles all fourteen major allergens, nuts included, so nothing I bake can be guaranteed free of traces. The butter pecan cookies contain pecans and the rum fruit cake contains alcohol. If the gift is a surprise and the person cannot check for themselves, please read my allergen information before you order.
How do I order letterbox Christmas gifts from Sploffin?
It takes a couple of minutes. Open the Christmas menu and choose a box. Add it to your basket, enter the address it should go to, and pick Royal Mail 1st Class or DPD next day. Choose the day you would like it to land, write your message for the card, and pay on Stripe's secure page. From 1 November, I bake it for your date, label it, pack it flat and post it.
If you are weighing up a cake rather than a festive box, my guide to letterbox cakes by post covers the year-round range.
A letterbox Christmas gift is a small thing done properly: a festive bake, a slim box, a first class stamp and a few words on a card. Somebody you love comes home in December, finds it on the mat, and the hallway smells of butter and spice. Choose a box from my Christmas menu and I will bake it for them.
Questions people ask
- What is a letterbox Christmas gift?
- A letterbox Christmas gift is a festive present packed slim enough to travel as a Royal Mail large letter, no more than 2.5cm thick and 750g, so it fits through a standard UK letterbox and arrives with the ordinary post. Nobody needs to be in. Mine are Christmas cookie boxes, peppermint brownies and cake slices, from £18, baked to order in Peterborough.
- What is the last day to order Christmas gifts by post from Sploffin?
- Last orders for Christmas close on 18 December at 11:59pm. Orders are open from 1 October and every Christmas bake is baked and sent from 1 November. At checkout you choose the day you would like the Christmas bakes in your order to land, and ordering early gives you the widest choice of dates.
- How much does it cost to send a letterbox Christmas gift?
- Most of my Christmas boxes are £18, and Royal Mail 1st Class postage for a large letter is £3.60, so they arrive anywhere in the UK for £21.60. The rum fruit cake slices are £23, or £26.60 delivered. DPD next day to mainland UK starts at £6.95, priced by weight at checkout.
- Are letterbox gifts good for Secret Santa?
- Yes. An £18 Christmas box with £3.60 postage comes to £21.60 delivered, inside a £25 Secret Santa budget. There is never a price or invoice inside a gift, and I hand-write your message on the card, so you can sign it from Secret Santa and keep the secret.
- Will the person receiving the gift see the price?
- No. There is never an invoice or a price inside a gift. Add your message at checkout and I hand-write it on a card tucked into the box, free, so the person opening it sees only the bake and your words.
- Does someone need to be home for a letterbox Christmas gift?
- Not when it goes by Royal Mail. A letterbox Christmas gift travels as a large letter, so it goes through the door with the ordinary post and waits on the mat. The whole rum fruit cake goes as a small parcel, and DPD is a courier delivering on the day you choose, to mainland UK.
- Can I send Christmas gifts by post to several people?
- Yes. Each address is its own order, with its own hand-written card and its own postage, so every person gets a box that looks as if it was meant only for them. For a bigger gifting run, such as a whole team or a long family list, email me and I will help you plan the dates.
Written by Sploffin, a small-batch bakery in Peterborough. Questions about an order? The FAQ answers most of them.