Personalised Christmas books, and the deadline that is not the one on the courier page

Paying is not the trigger. The book is drawn, you look at the character and the pages, and the printer only begins once you have approved them. If you pay on the 12th and do not come back to approve until the 18th, your delivery window started on the 18th.

So work backwards twice: from the 25th to the delivery window, and then from there to the day you will realistically sit down and look at it properly. That second gap is where Christmas orders are lost, and it is entirely inside your control.

Ours include production, not just transit, which is why they look longer than a courier estimate: the United Kingdom is six days, the United States nine to ten, Germany six to eight, and Ireland and Australia nine to fourteen. A book to a UK address approved on the 19th is inside the window; the same book approved on the 22nd is not.

The dates for your country are computed on our delivery page rather than typed here, because they move with the calendar and a wrong date in December is worse than no date at all.

Most Christmas gifts reward leaving it late - you can buy a toy on the 23rd. This is the opposite kind of object, and the people who are happiest with it are the ones who did it in November, when choosing a story was a nice evening rather than a panic.

There is also a digital edition, which is not subject to any of this. If you have left it genuinely too late, that is the honest answer rather than an express upgrade that still misses.

Be realistic about Christmas morning. A book - any book - opened in a pile beside something with lights and a motor gets about nine seconds. That is not a failure of the present; it is what a room full of wrapping paper does to everything quiet.

Where this kind of book actually lands is the flat days afterwards, when the novelty of the loud thing has gone and someone is looking for something to do at four in the afternoon. If you want it to be read on the day, read it on the day - out loud, with them, away from the pile.

At Christmas more than any other occasion you are buying for a child who is not yours - a grandchild, a niece, a friend's child - and a book like this needs a clear, forward-facing photograph of them. Asking their parent for one in December is asking a busy person for a favour, and it also gives the surprise away.

Ask in November, when it is a passing message rather than an errand, and ask for a recent one rather than the nicest one - a portrait from last summer draws a child who has since lost two teeth.

It does not fit a last-minute Christmas. It is twelve chapters drawn from one photograph, it needs your approval before anything prints, and no amount of paying more compresses the part where a person has to look at it.

It fits November, and it fits the child who is old enough to notice that the person in the book has their face. The cover and the whole first chapter are free before you pay, which at Christmas is worth using early: you can see the drawn character, decide, and still be inside the window. The digital edition is $14.90 and the hardcover $42.90.