– Personal writing

I can't complain about any of my childhood Christmases. They were replete with presents and sweets and that's pretty much all I cared about at the time. My parents were more than reasonably generous - considering their budget was usually tight when I was very young. But there was one "traditional" present that provided me with the lesson that, sometimes, things don't really live up to their promises. That was the store-bought Santa stocking, a bright and appealing package that contained a large helping of disappointment, unevenly distributed across a selection of exceedingly low-quality "novelties". Santa…