I have answered the door at Christmas in the wrong slippers for forty years. These are the first ones I have ever written a letter about.
I have answered the door at Christmas in the wrong slippers for forty years. These are the first ones I have ever written a letter about.
Six things two pairs of Christmas slippers get right that forty years of hall floor slippers never did, from a woman who spent last December singing carols at other people’s doors.
Maggie Whitfield · Customer · Cheshire · 5 min read
I had better say who is talking first. I am Maggie, I am 67, and I live in Cheshire with my husband Geoff and a labrador who barks at the door before anybody has knocked on it. I have owned a pair of slippers for as long as I have owned a front door, and I have never once thought any of them was worth writing to anybody about. Well. I have changed my mind, and it took a farmhouse doorstep and a woman called Elspeth to change it.
The slippers I am writing about are from the Christmas slipper 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. They are fluffy slip on slippers with a bit of Christmas on the toe. When the boutique asked if they could put my letter up for other women to read, I said yes, on the condition I could be completely honest in it.
I first saw a pair last December. I go out with the carol singers from our church every year, round the lanes at Rainow on the Sunday before Christmas, with a lantern and a collecting tin for the hospice. You knock, you sing, and you watch people come to the door. Most of them come in whatever was on their feet, and you see them look down and wish they had not. A few go back for their shoes, and by the time they come out we are on the second verse. At the last farmhouse the door opened and a woman about my age stepped straight out onto the cold step in bright red slippers with a little Santa on each toe. She stood there for three carols as if she had dressed for us, and then she went in and came back with a plate of mince pies. I waited at her gate until the others had gone on, and I asked her, plainly, where they were from. Her name was Elspeth. She told me. Read on.
The ones that started it. Three carols on a frosty step, and not a word of complaint from her feet.
Here is what forty years of answering my own front door taught me. Slippers come in two piles. The comfortable ones, gone flat and grey and shapeless, that you would rather nobody saw. And the proper shoes you go and find when somebody knocks, so you are fit to be seen, by which time the carol singers are at next door. At Christmas the door goes all week, and I have spent every one of those weeks either hiding my feet behind it or hopping down the hall with one shoe on.
For forty Christmases I hid my feet behind the door. Elspeth stood out on the step in hers.
Neither pile is any use to a woman whose door goes twenty times in Christmas week. These are the first slippers I have owned that are. I have answered a good many knocks in mine since, and it comes down to six things.
My first pair, the Noel, the morning they came. They were on my feet before the kettle had boiled.
A Santa who looks like somebody meant him
On the toe of each Noel slipper sits a little Santa head. He has a tall red hat that stands up with a white pompom on the end, a pink face with two bright black eyes, a round red pompom for a nose, a red smile and a big fluffy white beard that wraps round the front. He is not printed on, he is there. I have had novelty slippers before that looked tired by Boxing Day. These look as if somebody sat down and made them properly, and the first thing anyone does when they see them is smile.
On the hearth, where they wait for me every evening now.
The beards are so soft and the hats stand up properly. My grandson calls them my two Father Christmases.
Gillian P., KettleshulmeFluffy outside, soft and warm inside
The whole slipper is a thick fluffy plush, and the inside is lined so it is soft against your feet. The boutique says they keep your feet warm, and I can tell you that in our kitchen in January, with a quarry tile floor that has never once been warm in its life, they did. I will not tell you what they are made of, because the boutique does not say and I will not guess. I will tell you that Geoff tried one on for a joke and kept it on for the whole of the news.
So cosy. I have a stone floor in the kitchen and I have stopped dreading it first thing in the morning.
Lorraine M., Whaley BridgeA thick, cushioned sole with a bit of lift
The sole on the Noel is thick and cushioned, made in soft rounded sections, and it gives you a little lift off the floor. It feels soft underfoot all day, from the first cup of tea to the last. My old slippers had gone so thin I could feel every crumb on the floor. These put something between me and the floor, and I have worn them every evening since they came.
Like walking on a cushion. I am on my feet in the kitchen most of Christmas Day and these were a blessing.
Ann F., WincleOpen at the back, so you step in on the way
They are backless, so there is no heel to tread down and nothing to bend for. When the door goes, you step into them on your way down the hall and you are there before whoever it is has knocked twice. This sounds like nothing. It is the whole thing. It is the difference between answering your own door and shouting wait a minute through the letterbox.
The white ones at our front door this week. The labrador still gets there first.
Easy on, easy off. I keep them by the back door and slip them on to let the dog out.
Sheila K., Pott ShrigleyA quieter pair, for the days you do not want Santa looking up at you
I love my Noel, but I will admit there are mornings when two Father Christmases staring up from the carpet is a lot. So this autumn I went back for the Evergreen. It is a white fluffy slipper with a flat green Christmas tree on the toe, stitched round the edge, with six little red and yellow baubles, a little gold star on the top and a brown trunk. It is the same Christmas, only quieter. It comes in white or brown, and the white one is what I wear when the vicar calls.
The Evergreen at the end of the bed, ready for the morning.
Just enough Christmas without being silly. The little tree is so neatly done and they look lovely with my dressing gown.
Denise W., Furness ValeFour sizes, six designs, one price
They come in four sizes, from a UK 3 to a UK 8.5, and each size covers a little range, so a 6 to 7 is one size. That makes them easy to buy for somebody else without ringing to ask. There are six designs in the collection, every one at the same price. As well as the Noel, which comes in red or green, and the Evergreen, there is a Santa face with his hat draped over the toe, a reindeer in a Santa hat, a fluffy tree with a yellow star, and a pair with a little Santa, a tree and coloured pompoms. Mine came in the new year, and I did not mind a bit, because there was a whole winter left to wear them in. I have the Noel and the Evergreen now, and I have put a pair of the Evergreen away for my sister June, who still answers her door in her socks.
The pair of them by the stove. Santa for the busy days, the little tree for everything else.
Bought them for me and my sister. Same price whichever you choose, so we had one each of different ones.
Carole J., ChinleyThese slippers, against what is under your bed
You can carry on with slippers you would rather nobody saw, like I did for forty years. Here is the difference, laid out plainly.
Gone flat, grey and shapeless
Hidden behind the door when somebody knocks
Thin soles that feel every crumb
A heel to tread down on your way to the door
The same tired pair, every Christmas
Fluffy, with a soft warm lining
A Santa or a little tree you are glad to be seen in
A thick cushioned sole with a bit of lift
Open at the back, so you step straight in
Six designs, one price, four sizes
About the price
Every pair in the collection is £24.95, down from £50.00. The same price whichever design you pick, and in every size.
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 design sells through, that one is gone. Their words, not mine. What I can tell you from my side is that I have paid more than that for sensible slippers I hid behind the door for years. So £24.95 for a pair I would happily answer the door to the whole choir in made it an easy yes. Twice.
And 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 ever hidden your feet behind the door when somebody knocked at Christmas, this is where I would start. Have a look before somebody else takes the one you like, because the Christmas stock is already going. And if it is a present you have in mind, they make a lovely one, which is exactly what June is getting. The carol singers will be round the lanes again this December. This time I will be the one who opens the door.
Maggie
THE CHRISTMAS SLIPPER COLLECTION
- Six Christmas designs, every one the same price
- Noel Santa in red or green, Evergreen tree in white or brown
- Fluffy plush with a soft, warm lining
- Cushioned sole
- Backless, so they slip straight on
- UK 3 to UK 8.5 in four sizes · Free UK delivery
Sale on now. The Christmas stock is already going.