A letter from a reader

I have bought everybody else’s Christmas Eve pyjamas for forty years. These are the first I have ever bought for myself, and the first I have written a letter about.

Six things these two pyjama sets get right that forty years of brushed nighties and borrowed jumpers never did, from a woman who answered the door on Christmas morning looking like she had slept in a hedge.

Maggie Whitfield · Customer · Cheshire · 5 min read

You had better know who this is from. I am Maggie, I am 67, and I live in Cheshire with my husband Geoff and a labrador who believes Christmas is organised for his benefit. For nearly forty years I have done the Christmas Eve pyjamas in our family. Every year, a new pair for everybody in the house, laid out on the beds while they are at the carol service. Our daughter, then the grandchildren, Geoff, even the dog has had a new collar. In all that time there has never once been a pair for the woman doing the buying, and I had not noticed until last Christmas morning.

The pyjamas I am writing about are from the Christmas pyjama collection at Manchester Boutique, a small British boutique that has been quietly finding women like me the things we did not know we were allowed to have for a few years now. One is a red set with little Christmas trees called the Carys and one is a green set with holly and snowflakes called the Beatrice. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition that I could be completely honest in it.

Last Christmas our daughter took two old barn cottages on a farm outside Crickhowell, under the Black Mountains, for all of us, grandchildren and labrador included. At seven on Christmas morning she opened the fridge and found she had forgotten the milk. Before anybody could start on whose fault that was, there was a knock at the door. It was Bronwen, whose family farm it is, come over the frost from the end cottage with a white jug of milk. She had on red pyjamas with neat rows of little green Christmas trees, a proper collar, the buttons done up, and her wellies. I opened the door to her in a brushed nightie with Geoff’s old gardening jumper over the top. She looked as though she had dressed for it. I looked as though I had slept in a hedge. When she came back for her jug, I asked her, plainly, where they were from. She told me. Read on.

Bronwen and the milk. Our son-in-law took this from the window, and I made him send it to me.

Here is what forty years of looking for my own nightwear taught me. It comes in two piles. There is the pile made for my granddaughter: shorts, slogans, onesies with ears on the hood, all of it designed for somebody who has never had to get up in the night. And there is the pile made for my mother: the brushed nightie with the little bow at the neck, the quilted dressing gown, the colour of weak tea. So I gave up, bought everybody else theirs, and wore whatever was at the top of the drawer.

For forty Christmas Eves I bought new pyjamas for everybody in the house except the woman doing the buying. Bronwen crossed a frozen farmyard in hers with a jug of milk, and she looked better than I did.

I ordered on my phone on Boxing Day, sitting on the cottage stairs while the grandchildren fought over a board game. I got the Carys, because of Bronwen, and the Beatrice, because she told me the green one was the one she reaches for most. I have now had both since the turn of the year, and it comes down to six things.

The morning they came. Geoff said they looked far too smart to sleep in, which was rather the idea.

1

A proper collar and four buttons

This is the part that got me at the cottage door. The top is a real shirt, with a collar that lies flat and four small buttons down the front, so it looks like something you meant to put on. You can open the door to the postman in it, or to a farmer’s wife with the milk, or to the carol singers, and nobody needs to look at their shoes. My nightie never once managed that.

Folded on the kitchen table. The collar is what does it.

★★★★★

I answered the door to my neighbour in these on Boxing Day and she asked if I was going out somewhere.

Glenys M., Talgarth

2

Long sleeves and long trousers

The sleeves come down to the wrist and the trousers come all the way to the ankle, so you are covered from top to bottom without a dressing gown over the lot. No shorts, no cropped legs, nothing riding up when you sit on the floor with the grandchildren. On a dark morning I come down, put the kettle on and let the dog out in them, and I do not feel I need to hide behind the back door.

First thing, kettle on. He is waiting to see if toast is involved.

★★★★★

Finally a pair with sleeves to the wrist and trousers to the ankle. No shorts, no cropped legs, no fuss.

Pamela R., Llangynidr

3

Smooth, soft and light

I will not tell you what they are made of, because the boutique does not say and I will not guess. What I can tell you is that they are smooth and soft and lightweight, and they slide on rather than cling. The first night I wore them I forgot I had them on, which after forty years of nighties twisting round my knees is worth writing a letter about on its own.

Over my chair by the window, where things wait to be put away.

★★★★★

So smooth and light. I have thrown out three old nighties since these arrived and I do not miss one of them.

Hazel D., Gilwern

5

Christmas, for a grown woman

The Carys has neat rows of little green trees on a bright red, each with a tiny star on top, and nothing else going on. The Beatrice is deep green with sprigs of holly and small white snowflakes. There are no slogans, no reindeer with a red nose, no ears on a hood. They look like Christmas without looking like a joke, and they look like a pair, which is exactly how they live in my drawer.

The pair of them. Trees for Christmas Eve, holly for every morning after it.

★★★★★

Festive without being silly. My grandson said I looked like a proper grandma in a film, and I took that as a compliment.

Morwenna T., Bwlch

These pyjamas, against what is in your drawer

You can carry on with the nightie and the borrowed jumper, as I did for forty years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.

About the price

The Carys and the Beatrice are £32.95 each, down from £66.00, and every one of the seventeen designs in the collection is the same price.

I will pass on what the boutique told me, which is that these are in their sale while the Christmas stock goes, and once a print sells through in a size, that one is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that I have spent more than that on Christmas Eve pyjamas for other people every single year, and not a penny on myself.

And here is the thing I would tell you if we were standing in the same farmyard. I left it until Boxing Day, so mine were a January present to myself. I wore them right through to the end of February and nobody stopped me, but I missed Christmas in them. Do not do what I did.

I do not trust perfect scores, so I read the reviews before I ordered. Just over three hundred of them, sitting at 4.2 stars, which sounded like real people rather than robots, so I read on. The same six things I have just walked you through come up in them, over and over, in other women’s words.

If you have bought everybody else’s Christmas pyjamas for years and never your own, this is where I would start. Have a look while your size is still there, and put a pair in the pile with your own name on it. We are going back to the barn cottages this Christmas. If anybody forgets the milk, I am going over the yard for it myself, and I shall be dressed for it.

Maggie

THE CHRISTMAS PYJAMA COLLECTION

★★★★☆ 4.2 out of 5 from 300+ reviews

£66.00 £32.95

• Seventeen Christmas designs in the collection
• Carys: rows of little trees on bright red
• Beatrice: holly and snowflakes on deep green
• Collared button-front shirt with long sleeves
• Matching long trousers, relaxed fit
• UK 8 to UK 16 · Free UK delivery

See The Christmas Pyjama Collection

Sale on now. The popular prints are already going.