Christmas is coming - the season of merriment and good cheer.

But before the shops go 'Full Tinsel-Crackers' on us and pound us into submission with Wizzard and Celine Dion, and before the adverts wind us all up with a fear of missing out, maybe there is time for thought about what really matters at Christmas?

For me the good part of Christmas is seeing friends, eating big family meals and relaxing or doing the activities I want to do.

As time passes, shopping has become much less fun and the shops seem to be selling more and more things we never knew we wanted or needed.

After all, a lot of the stuff on sale for Christmas, if you haven’t eaten it, is going to be in a bin by January, or a charity shop, or will be making your wardrobe hard to close again, (as a matter of interest where do you all store your Christmas jumper(s) for 11 months of the year?).

Please don’t be the workmate who dumps their Christmas chocolate in the office on January 2, just when we are hoping to get back to eating normally - just buy less chocolate, everyone.

Another consideration is that a huge amount of the ‘single Christmas use’ stuff we are persuaded to buy, and all the packaging it comes with, is coming from China.

Chinese manufacturers are using electricity generated from coal to make it and we can’t really blame China for those emissions if we keep buying the stuff.

So as the shops fill up, choose fewer, nicer presents for your nearest and dearest.

Choose fewer, nicer outfits for yourself.

Try to make small, desirable parcels that have more content than packaging to put under the tree.

And maybe, when you pick anything up off a shelf, ask how many Christmases you will want it around, how many times you will wear it, or just how long it will be in your home before you are dragging it out to the bin.

You will probably put a few things back on the shelf.

Have a wonderful Christmas.

But you need to decide how to take control of this early because the crackers will be in the shops any week now.

Sue Nicholson
Sidmouth