Right. Here is my Christmas Rant. I am going to go through this at length and I am setting out my thoughts. I am not trying to set out a polemic or start a pointless argument. If you would like to comment, please do me the courtesy of respecting my point of view rather than using the facile and well-trodden path of shouting Scrooge or Bah Humbug. I have come to these downbeat conclusions over a number of years, and I don’t think well-timed visits from men in nighties is going to change my mind much.

Those of you who know me will know I’m not a big fan of organised Christmas activity. There are parts of it that are wonderful. Who wouldn’t like an excuse for a big festive dinner and a bit of a drink, a chance to shut ourselves up with our loved ones and pets for a day, and whirlwind of catching up with our friends and neighbours for a few seasonal parties? I don’t mind putting cards in the post. I even have been known to write a round-robin, and it’s nice hearing back from people telling us what their years have been like.

There are parts that are bleak and dark for me. Gift-giving is one such. I extend this to birthdays too. It would be wonderful if we could have a brief exchange of meaningful gifts – things we have bought for each other because they will make our lives easier or better or happier. Things we know will be appreciated. But I bet most presents most people receive this year won’t fit those categories. They will receive presents that say “I spent a lot of money on you” or that say “I was tearing round the shops at the last minute and this was the last thing on the shelves that even vaguely matches your personality.” I know I have given gifts just like this.

It’s clearly not good. From a purely personal point of view, I live in a cluttered house. I don’t have places to house most of the things I own so they live in piles around me. I don’t like this, but I don’t seem to be able to fix it. I think I have everything I need or want. Consequently there have been years when I come home from gift giving events laden with large consumerist items I have no need of and no place to put. What do I do? I’m not sufficiently singleminded to sling them out, so they join the oppressive clutter bearing down on me.

(Two notable exceptions to this are books and food. Food-parcels have been amongst the best gifts I have received in recent years. And books can at least join some of the slightly better organised clutter in the house. Or read once and set free (as if I could, with my hoarding instincts). But if you’re going to get me food, try not to contribute to my weight problem. And if you’re buying me books, there’s no need to give me new ones. Go and buy used paperbacks by weight, tatty crime novels off Amazon Marketplace for £0.01 + p&p. It’s the same story in ’em!)

That’s the personal aspect of promiscuous gift giving. Now a wider aspect. Think a little about what you see in the shops at this time of the year. Think about what’s being heavily promoted on TV, if you watch much TV. Trawl back through your commercial email, solicited or not, and look at what they’re trying to sell you. Some of it might meet the criteria of good gifts. Much of it is mountains of tat that no-one in their right mind actually wants.

And yet we will be going out in our millions and buying it. Three for two gift sets in Boots that will probably be passed on unopened. Soft toys and strange drinks to be passed on as the raffle prizes no-one will choose. A million different gadgets that will get played with once or twice then sit in a box somewhere, their circuits slowly corroding as the batteries start to leak. Novelty cork-screws given to people who already have a perfectly functional way of opening a bottle of wine.

This is just in the largely adult circles I’m currently exchanging gifts with. So far, few of my friends have children. It’s not like I’ll ever have ankle biters of my own. But every frame of reference I have tells me that the ante is upped still higher when the young ones are involved. The Guardian reported in 2002 that the average family cost of Christmas Day was £564 a family – without including presents.

Christmas with really young children must have the potential to be really wonderful. Naive excitement, all that guff about Santa, the shiny lights and twinkling tinsel. But by the time they get old enough to decide what they want, and be influenced by peer pressure and advertising, and have no concept of the pressures of budget – how does any parent cope? Anecdotally, I know of one little girl whose various parents and grandparents were financially vying for affection and overdid it on the presents one Christmas. She got showered with gifts to such a degree that she couldn’t concentrate for long enough to open them all, but got bored and wandered off halfway through!

The really depressing thing is how much our entire economy is built on these mountains of tat that no-one wants. How many people have been involved in that gift-set before it sits under your crestfallen face? As you try and look enthusiastic, trace it back through its life.

Someone has sold it to your donor. Someone sold them the paper its wrapped in. Someone was employed to drive it to the store, someone was paid to put it on a shelf. It was someone’s job to think up just that combination of different things, put them in plastic box with shredded guinea pig bedding, package it beautifully, and advertise it on national TV. Someone, probably someone a long way away earning a dollar a decade, actually made the things in the box.

Two days after you opened yours, it’s going to be someone else’s job to sell hundreds of leftover ones just like yours at knock-down prices to an ill-tempered mob of January sales shoppers.

That’s just one unwanted gift. Multiply it up by all the millions of unwanted gifts, and you start to see the sheer importance of the tat-selling frenzy to our entire economy. All the big high-street players who are peddling this tat need a big boost in sales at this time of year to stay in the game. If your sales don’t see an upturn in November, December and January, your stock starts to fall. If your stock falls, your investors go elsewhere and ultimately all those millions of people who were gainfully employed shipping the tat from Taiwan to trees in sitting rooms across Britain find themselves out on their ears.

Our entire economy is underpinned by the unwanted gift industry. I can’t be the only person who finds that profoundly depressing.

Declaration of interests: I haven’t bought the vast majority of my Christmas presents yet. I started this afternoon, and gave up when I realised I didn’t have a bloody clue for almost all of the people I am expected to buy for. I will be out there clamouring for unwanted tat just like everyone else.

Within my close family, the argument is nearly won. It’s enough for us now to get together over Christmas and see each other. The gifts are small and modest. My Dad always gets the Booker prize-winning novel for Christmas, so there’s one present I don’t have to rack my brain for. He’s a meticulous reader, so it will probably last him until his birthday in February when I will have to put my thinking cap on anew.

I don’t know if I’ve won the argument with P. He really likes Christmas. He’s clamouring to put up decorations, and the only reason they’re not up already is because it’s a bit pointless when we know that all of this week is going to see workmen tramping through our halls making dust and dirt. Might as well wait and put the tree up after they’ve gone, which is the sort of time I think trees ought to go up. In childhood, we’d wait until we broke up from school. Several of P’s friends have their trees up in November, and they certainly won’t be coming down on Twelfth Night.

There are several groups of friends I go through gift-giving rituals where the argument is not won, and they will be spending on me and expecting me to reciprocate. There is no way out. They don’t take me seriously if I say the best present I could receive is the gift of not receiving anything and not having to give anything. Having a nice day where we sit in the warm and eat and drink and chat would never be enough. I’m accused of scroogery. Going away for Christmas wouldn’t work – the various gift-giving ceremonies are scheduled around commitments, and they would wait for me, or, horror of horror, make us schedule the party even earlier! (At least when it falls late, post-Christmas, people can get better value, January sales tat rather than premium rate tat).

“The War on Christmas”

Coming up later – what I think about the “aggressive secularists”!