☕️ TDA's 2025 recommendation list

We’re doing things a little differently today. We thought we would compile a list of recommendations from TDA’s team to keep you company over the break.

We asked the team: If you could recommend absolutely anything, what would it be?

We hope you enjoy. And we’ll see you in the new year!

Do you cook at all? Even just chopping tomatoes for hard-shell flavour-packet tacos? You need a bench scraper.

Stop picking up bits you've chopped on your cutting board with the flat of your knife and get a bench scraper that will pick everything up smoothly and tip it into your pan or bowl or pot.

Even better, get a flexible plastic one to scrape cake batter or dough out of a mixing bowl.

I discovered Umami Papi Chilli Oil in May when making dumplings and it’s revolutionised my kitchen. Now it goes on everything I eat from eggs, to pasta and salads.

This isn't your standard chilli oil situation – it is the flavour bomb that every meal needs. I can't stop telling everyone I know how good it is. You are welcome. Thank me later.

Good sleep is one of those things you don’t realise you’re missing until you fix it.

Koala’s Boxing Day Sale is live with up to 30% off sitewide, including 30% off the Luxe Mattress for proper, hotel-level support, plus 25% off the Koala Sofa Bed (3rd Gen) that goes from couch to bed in seconds.

A perfect excuse to upgrade your sleep and your space at the same time!

Never in my life did I think I’d be recommending a documentary about extreme birdwatching – but here we are. Uploaded to YouTube for free (yep, no subscription needed), Listers follows two brothers as they dedicate a year to finding birds across America.

“But Antonia, what makes it so good?” Fantastic question. Listers dives headfirst into the quirky, obsessive world of competitive birding, told through a unique mixed-media lens. I truly have never seen anything like it – and I’m not sure I ever will again.

You've probably seen a lot of the best shows of 2025 already, so I wanted to recommend one you may not have watched yet: a BBC crime drama called 'This City is Ours' on Stan. It's one of my top picks for the year because it's one of those super bingeable shows that gets under your skin and you can't look away from.

The series is centred on an organised crime family, whose empire has given them control of underground Liverpool. It's got romance, drugs, betrayal, suspense, family politics, and all the chaos and tension you'd expect from a gritty gangland drama. The BBC has confirmed a second season is in the works. Season one is now streaming on Stan.

If crime drama is your thing and you haven't seen it yet, ‘Task’ on HBO Max is another excellent series to add to your watch list.

Is there anything more frustrating than having to get up in the middle of the night to pee? Yes, there is: having to turn on the blindingly bright bathroom light so that you can go for the pee in the middle of the night.

This happened one too many nights for me to do nothing about this year. So, I went on a hunt. And how glad I am that I did. Now I have two of these on my bathroom walls: motion sensor lights. They're ambient. They're soft. They turn themselves on and off. And they come in a pack of five. You know, to share the ambient love around every room of your apartment.

I can't recommend them enough. Now, I almost look forward to getting up in the night to pee… almost.

At the start of this year, Tara (our previous Head of Commercial) and I set out to message the people we love more often.

Each month, I’ve thought of someone in my life and sent them a message of appreciation – completely out of the blue. It surprises me each time, but once I start writing, I realise how much I have to say.

It’s an easy feel-good practice and the perfect reminder that there’s so much to appreciate about everyone in your life. More often than not, I'll catch them on a day when they really need to hear it – another reminder that it’s always a good idea.

I promise this will fill your cup in more ways than one!

The song Cobra by Geese knocked my socks off on first listen and has been hard to kick ever since. Their sound is so unique, whilst having shades of fellow American rockers like Car Seat Headrest and MJ Lenderman. It's a (complicated) love song like nothing I've heard before – worth a listen!

This card game is my current addiction and something I whip out to play at any occasion. Day at the beach? Monopoly Deal. Babysitting your niece? Monopoly deal? First date? Monopoly Deal. It is a quicker and a much more entertaining riff on the original board game. Have I ever won a round of Monopoly Deal? Only against people who don't know how to play.