Christmas shopping, mince pies, advent calendars… what’s not to love about December?

Mainly I am very into Christmas, except when it turns into one of those working-parent frenzies. I think you know what I mean: sprinting to get to the Nativity play in time (only to get the last seat behind the Dad with flu wearing a huge furry collar and blocking out entire view of stage), realising on December 23rd that there are no cranberries to be had in the entire western hemisphere, weeping because it’s 2.30am on Xmas Eve, you’ve still got 27 presents left to wrap and the Sellotape has just run out.

I blame the Sunday supplements.

Really, did anyone think it was necessary to have colour-coded ‘charger’ plates, napkin rings, centre-pieces and candleholders before the explosion of interior design spreads in the Sunday supplements? Now it is possible to blow your entire Xmas budget just on wreaths, banister garlands, card-display holders, Christmas-scented candles and all related attic fodder that retailers are arm-wrestling us to buy.

Try to have a calm, relaxing and fun Christmas. Life may in fact be too short to stuff a turkey, never mind a mushroom. It is not possible to get or to give everything on everybody’s wish list. So there.

The only must-haves under our Xmas tree this year are (apparently) one microscope and one Sylvanian family. It will be a toy microscope and a recessionista Sylvanian family – they’re coming with a caravan, not a house: does that make the little bunnies trailer trash?!

Now that my buddies are 11 and 7, one is a confirmed Santa cynic (but is keeping it quiet) the other seems to have figured out that Santa is a story but is also keeping quiet in case this leads to less presents.

I think I may go the route of a friend with grown-up children who confided: ‘What do you mean when did I tell them? Santa still brings their present every year. That way they can’t complain to me!’

Meanwhile, I am averting my eyes from the clothes-shop window displays. No, I do not need a new Christmas outfit! Even though I find a sequin very hard to resist. I already have one sequinned skirt and a sequinned dress from previous Christmases and two sequin-studded outfits is probably enough!

Please, please, please go into a bookshop and buy some gorgeous books as Christmas presents. I always love getting and giving books for Christmas. Getting a book means someone has really taken time to think about you and what you would enjoy.

These titles are already hidden in my wardrobe for this Christmas:

For the serious readers

Margaret Atwood – The Year of the Flood

John Banville – Infinities

For the comedy seeker

PG Wodehouse – The Inimitable Jeeves (lovely hardback edition)

For the babies

Helen Cooper – Pumpkin Soup

John and Janet Ahldberg – Each Peach Pear Plum

Lauren Child’s latest!

For the older boys

John Connolley – The Gates

Robert Muchamore – Eagle Day

For the glamour puss

Axel Madsen – Chanel (this is a great biog, loved it!)

And one title I really have to recommend when the whole Christmas spendathon gets way too much: Love Is Not Enough – A Smart Woman’s Guide To Money by Merryn Somerset Webb. This girl is genius. She will explain all that complicated financial jargon and change the way you budget forever. (I may have to staple Annie to a chair and make her read it!)

A very, very happy Christmas when you finally get there!

Loads of things going on this month as the third Annie Valentine is released: How Not To Shop comes with the chance to win an Egyptian holiday (and if like me you’ve spent much of the summer in Glasgow – you might be needing something like that).

Rush to your nearest branch of Faith and they will give you a special edition of The Personal Shopper for free if you spend over £30 (easily done, I have been on their website and checked those shoes out… and they do big sizes. Gone are the days when you went to any shoe shop, asked for a size 8 and the shop assistant’s eyes popped from her head in astonishment – I’m still slightly scarred though.)

The lovely people at ultra-stylish Scottish Woman magazine have put me on their shortlist for witty Scottish Woman of the Year. I still can’t believe that… anyway, you can find out more if you follow this link. Hey, you can even vote and yes I will understand if you think Ronni Ancona is much more worthy!

Also, give this link a whirl if you’d like to read an interview with me from the Sunday Herald magazine. It’s incredibly nice, Susan Swarbrick was totally charming and no, I don’t have anything on her, she wrote this all of her own accord, honest! ‘Poster girl for yummy mummy chic’ oooh how my husband fell about laughing at that. He knows the grim reading glasses and ratty jeans reality!

Now, which photos can I use to enliven the August blog… I’m still missing New York, so here are another two from the holiday. The big plastic roach key-ring which was the gag of the fortnight: it ended up in everyone’s shoes, everyone’s bed, even Sam’s salad and my birthday presents. Eeek!

Then there are the family birthday cards… obviously cute dogs feature highly as we were all totally missing Jimmy by then!