Christmas 2014: 7 best last-minute subscription gifts

The great gifts that you really can buy last-minute (Christmas morning, if you're desperate), complete with printable vouchers

So, you’ve left it to the eleventh hour to buy your Christmas gifts and can’t quite face the Christmas Eve crush? Here’s our edit of subscription gifts that you can buy online, no delivery time required, and print your own gift certificate for so you’ve got something more than an ‘IOU’ to give on the day. You’re welcome.

1. Kopi by Café Direct: from £24 for 3 months, kopi.co.uk

For the caffeine fiend; they’ll receive a 250g bag of roasted-to-order coffee each month from different countries around the globe, in a handily letter box-sized box. Plus, you can download and print a rather snazzy personalised gift certificate.

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2. Birchbox: from £38.85 for 3 months, birchbox.co.uk

There’s a veritable sea of beauty subscription boxes available now, but the original remains one of the most popular. Get four or five products each month, based on a survey of your giftee’s preferences. Partners include premium cult beauty brands Benefit, Laura Mercier and Nars.

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3. BeerBods: from £36 for 3 months, beerbods.co.uk

They’ll get 12 beers from small, independent breweries in the post every three months – that’s one a week — and will receive an email every Thursday about that week’s bottle. Choose to send the gift certificate by email rather than post when you add the subscription to your basket.

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4. Petite ToucanBox: from £24.65 for 3 months, toucanbox.com

Keep little hands busy with a monthly craft project, picked to suit their age and ability and complete with simple illustrated instructions — a present for tired parents and curious kids. The petite size fits neatly through your letterbox so there’s no need to worry about being in for delivery, but for more than one project a month, there are ‘grande’ and ‘super’ sizes available.

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5. Nudo Adopt Darjeeling Tea Garden: from £18 for one delivery, nudoadopt.com

A great gift for tea aficionados, adopt a tea garden in their name and they’ll get 125g of exotic loose leaf Indian tea from the plants. Deliveries can be made quarterly, with each producing a different flavour depending on the season.

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6. Spotify Premium: £9.99 a month, spotify.com

Taylor Swift may have withdrawn her music from the service last month — to much dismay — but Spotify still has plenty to offer, with over 30 million songs and counting. With their premium service, your favourite music fan can play any song in the library, anywhere, without an internet connection and uninterrupted by ads.

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7. Netflix: from £5.99 a month, netflix.com

For boxset-bingers or film buffs, give the gift of unlimited with a Netflix subscription and get access to everything from Pulp Fiction to Breaking Bad to Good Will Hunting, plus Netflix exclusives including the much-talked-about Orange is the New Black and House of Cards.

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Verdict: For a more unusual gift, BeerBods is a great choice, and toucanBox is sure to be a winner with the littluns, but nothing beats Netflix for sheer value for money.

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