IT'S that time of year guys. Set aside the egg-nog, wrap up in last year's scarf and venture off into the wilderness that is the shopping centre. Don't forget your avalanche transceiver, lest you get swept away under a tumble of shoppers, never to be seen again.
I like to treat Christmas shopping as an adventure - I have to, or I'd never get it done.
Few things strike fear into my heart quite like shopping for that special lady in my life. I know I'm not alone, but if buying Christmas presents for girlfriends was an Olympic sport, I'd be best mates with Eddie the Eagle.
It's a minefield out there. Even if you return home with the smug feeling that you've got the perfect gift - I don't mean just the effects of the gluhwein you got from the German market, twice - you find yourself in despair. What if she's got you more than one? You know she has.
Fortunately, this year I had the good sense to ensure there isn't a special lady to buy for, but I haven't been so lucky in previous years.
In fact I chose very badly with my ex, if I'm honest.
A perfectly lovely girl, but we got together at the end of November and her birthday was just before Christmas, leaving me a nervous present-buying wreck by Boxing Day.
My complete phobia of buying presents for girlfriends has much deeper roots. I plain hate shopping.
It's not that I just don't like it, I am terrified of it. I am even more terrified of shops aimed at women, and sales assistants. It's a wonder I leave the house at any time of year, in fact.
It all started when I was five. Sent to get some frozen peas in the supermarket I returned to the trolley to find my mum had gone.
I thought she'd abandoned me and, let's face it, who could blame her.
I wandered the frozen food isles like a tiny Arctic explorer, convinced I'd get eaten by a bear (well, I was five), before a shop assistant picked me up and - to my mum's everlasting horror - announced over the tannoy that I was a lost child.
Lost when my mum was barely ten metres away.
She wasn't this ashamed even when I was sick over my teacher at the Christmas carol concert.
Shops still make me panic. I can do the food shopping, but only if I have a list and a good meal beforehand (my ex actually refused to go with me if we didn't have one, that's how bad I am).
Here's the problem though: you can't make lists for Christmas shopping, at least not useful ones. You don't know what the shop will have.
Vague ideas like 'perfume', 'jewellery' or 'scarf' just won't do. It means I have to make decisions in the store, under duress. Still terrified of being eaten by that, hopefully metaphorical, bear.
A couple of years ago I tried, desperately, to emulate the getting-lots-of-presents approach that girls seem to pull off effortlessly. I thought there might be safety in numbers. I failed, spectacularly.
In my panic I couldn't think straight. I was so sure my plan would work and then, in the heat of the moment, I bought a loofah. Not even a good one at that.
If I had got a loofah in the shape of George Clooney's head I might have got away with it, just. But no, I bought a loofah which fell apart before New Year and remains scarred into my ex's memory as the worst Christmas present in history.
I dreaded the silent treatment, those awful moments (days, weeks) where nothing you can do will make up for it. Instead I got a worried look - she thought I'd done it deliberately, so she'd break up with me.
It took some convincing that I was, in fact, so stupid that I would buy a loofah in good faith as a Christmas present. But there wasn't really a right answer to the question.
I could see the same, 'What the hell am I doing with this guy?' look in her eyes that her mother always had.
Last Christmas, I did my research. I employed female friends as sherpas in the retail mountains.
Using their expert knowledge of the high street tundra I ventured forth, and came back with a dress and a matching necklace. Matching!
This had to be good. Although I have the colourcoordination of an albino chameleon, my female friends assured me this would score brownie points.
Come Christmas morning and my girlfriend hesitantly took the package from me - I might've succeeded in buying the present, but my wrapping still leaves something to be desired.
She tore the paper off, an inquisitive look on her face. I didn't dare to breathe as she stood up and held the dress against her, holding the necklace in place.
And she smiled and kissed me. I'd done it! I felt like Neil Jenkins as he put that kick over the posts to beat England in the last minute.
'I love it,' she said in amazement. 'And the necklace matches! How did you know?' 'Well, the girl in the shop looked nice in it, so...'
'Which girl?' she snapped angrily.
So close.
