My favourite time of the year is here again and this is the best bit. It’s the end of November, ideas are fresh and shop windows are decorated with fir branches, Christmas trees and shiny baubles and gifts wrapped like works of art. Mulled wine aroma is in the air and it mixes well with mince pies and a blob of brandied cream. Children queue to sit on Santa’s knee and offer a spectrum of responses from delight to abject horror and screams. Frazzled mothers meet up and discuss their economic woes as they tuck their little one’s expensive pressies beneath push chairs and prams. Christmas anaesthetises credit card spending. No child today wishes a 1950s type stocking containing a book and a set of crayons, nestling next to an apple and two fragrant satsumas.

The little ones must have the latest gadget toy, costing a king’s ransom and deliberately in short supply.  Swayed by the hype, many economically challenged parents forget that an extra hour with Mum or Dad each day would offer the same level of entertainment and education but would throw in the extra benefits of love, hugs and better bonding for their little prince or princess. So, before they stretch their frail purses in a frenzy of spending, it would be better to ask if there’s something better to give at home. Their LOVE and TIME. Most wish they had when those bills come in and the anaesthetic of spending with plastic has worn off. This year, give long term Love, not short lived trends. One keeps you in control of your life; the other hands that control to corporations.

Making your own gifts hands a part of you over to someone else. Nothing will ever mean more to the people you love.