In among the scattered wonder of my son's Christmas presents is the iPod I received from my partner, a very cool book on Dali, Escher and optical illusions from one sister-in-law... and this from the other: -


Look out world, I have the horn and I'm not afraid to use it!!!

Hark the Herald Angel sings
Advertising wondrous things!
Tom Lehrer.

Every year, the same story. Every year, I’m not going to do it. Every year, I wonder where the time’s gone and the tale unfolds again.
What do I mean?
Christmas shopping.
Call me the last great starry-eyed idealist, but I like actually choosing presents. I enjoy wrapping them, I get excited seeing them piled-bright under my tree, I love the anticipation as they’re opened; I get an enormous amount of joy from surprising people with special, personal gifts.
Okay, so I’m a big kid. I’m guessing you’ve realised that.
Last year, our Christmas shopping consisted of one postie-staggering box. It was quick, it was easy, it kept us well clear of Mall Mania – as an etail marketeer, this is the exactly kind of thing I should celebrate.
Yet, I didn’t enjoy buying the family’s gifts. I didn’t enjoy wrapping them, or the electric expectation of watching people open them. One of the things I love most about Yule was lost in the emptiness of it all.
‘Oh, the DVD I wanted, thanks.’
But what’s the alternative? To find dedicated and personal presents for my family, I have to storm the gates of High Street Hell. The seeking out of gifts has twisted and swelled into something monstrous; wrestling the demonaic frenzy of the West End is even worse than having Father Amazon drop down my chimney with a boxful of expediency.
Seems I’m trying to follow some sweetly glistening star and steer a course between characterless convenience and consumer chaos…
Big kid I may be; something in me still misses the magic.
In a world where you can buy advent calendars in supermarkets in August, it’s hard to keep enchantment in the festive holiday. It’s stressful, it’s expensive, it’s marketed to death – only our Christmas cards give tiny glimpses of that snow-sparkling, childhood ideal…

Then, just as my naïveté is overwhelmed by a great wash of Bah Humbug, I see the twinkling lights of my tree reflected in the shining eyes of my son.
And I remember why I do this.