Happy New Year!  Desirable.co.uk is back from its Christmas break, but with a new format to let you all in on.  We’re now going to be rolling back to weekly (rather than daily) updates, to ease the workload on our editor (me!).  These weekly updates will have more content than the old single theme posts, but will only happen (you guessed it) once a week!

We hope you all have a happy, successful new year!

That’s right folks!  Follow Desirable on Twitter (click here or search for @Desirablecouk on Twitter) and you’ll be eligible to win exclusive prizes that only our Twitter friends will hear about!  You’ll also get the chance to hear about what goes on behind the scenes here at Desirable HQ (usually we are hungry for chocolate, whinging about the cold, and tweeting about our favourite finds).

If you’re a fan of Desirable.co.uk and want to see even more Desirable finds, sign up for our Mailing List which is soon to be appearing regularly in our lovely members inboxes!  Amongst other things we’ll be sending you exclusive discount codes for online retailers and giving you insight into the fashion, beauty and homewares industries.

We’ve put the finishing touches on our Christmas Gift Guide so that you don’t have to stress about finding the perfect present this Christmas.  Aside from the usual categories (’Gifts for Mums’, ‘Gifts for Kids’, ‘Gifts for Stylish Women’) we’ve gone that step further and delivered – ‘Gifts for Food Lovers’, ‘Gifts for Globe-Trotters’ and ‘Gifts for Bibliophiles’ too!

Check it out now by clicking the banner below:

For those of you who might have noticed an absence of posts Friday-Sunday, we apologise – Desirable HQ was on vacation!  Fortunately we’re back now and will have a huge selection of goodies to show you over the  next few weeks, including a Christmas Beauty Special and a feature on Olay’s miracle creams (how do they do it?!).

If you haven’t already had a look, might we suggest you browse through our Christmas Gift Guide, which is crammed full of good ideas.  With Christmas less than 8 weeks away and the UK suffering from crippling postal strikes, it might not be a bad idea to get shopping early this year!

Also, if you’re an owner of your own UK-based brand or store, or know of someone who needs a bit of free publicity, why not submit your site for listing in our UK Stores Directory?  We only ask a reciprocal link in return, so it’s an easy way to start your store climbing through the pages of Google.  Pop on over to our Contact page to send us your recommendations.

Finally, if you haven’t already registered for our Mailing List, do it now!  Coming up to Christmas we’ll be sending out our Inaugural Mailing List update which will be packed full of exclusive voucher codes, sales previews and last minute gift ideas.  Hooray!

And now we return you to your regular programme…

Have you visited our 2009 Christmas Gift Guide yet?  If you haven’t it’s well worth having a look – aside from the more practical categories like ‘Gifts for Mums’ and ‘Gifts for Stylish Women’ we have such sections as ‘Gifts for Cooks’, ‘Gifts for Bibliophiles’ and ‘Gifts for Drinkers’ (my personal favourite, ahem!).  You don’t need to use the Guide just for Christmas either – the gifts we recommend are relevant in any occasion such as a birthday, anniversary or special celebration.  You might also use it as a way to find things to add to your own Christmas wishlist – I know I have!  Check it out now!

Take this as a plea from the depths of my heart – I’m not going to be one of those bloggers that pretends I’m really surprised to have been nominated and even more nonchalant about asking for votes – it would be a load of bollocks if I did.  Instead I’m going to be honest – I’d love it if you could vote for Desirable.co.uk at the Bloggers Choice Awards, where we’ve been nominated in two categories:

Best Shopping Blog

Best Blog about Stuff

It’s pretty simple – you register (it takes 3 seconds) and click ‘Vote’, the more votes Desirable.co.uk gets, the higher it rises in the rankings and the more people are likely to see it and also vote.  I’d be really grateful for any/all votes you can muster!

Back to your regular broadcast…

You might have already noticed, but just in case you haven’t, allow me to point you in the direction of the 2009 Christmas Gift Guide that we’ll be adding to over the coming months – hopefully you’ll find something to inspire you or your friends and family!