Daddy Cool: 'There are only 47 shoplifting days to christmas'

WELL the nights are fair drawing in, the central heating is on (30 minutes in the morning and 30 minutes in the evening, put a Lopi jumper on the rest of the time if you're cold, do you think I'm made of money?) and by my calculations there are only 47 shoplifting days until Christmas.

Truly a chilling thought. Could my eight-year-old son, his six-year-old brother or their three-year-old sister remember what Santa generously stuffed their stockings with last year if their lives depended on it? Probably not. Doubtless they will have broken it, or the batteries will have corroded its innards, or it will be buried beneath the half-ton mound of Power Ranger figurines, Panini World Cup stickers and Disney Princess paraphernalia that dominates their room. I fully expect a couple of Chilean miners to eventually emerge from that tomb of tat, painfully blinking with milky-white cataracts into the low winter sun beyond gossamer-thin Winnie The Pooh curtains.

Implausibly, Fireman Sam and Buzz Lightyear feature prominently in the leading dozen top toys for Christmas recently picked out by the Toy Retailers Association. Feeble merchandise linked to films and TV programmes apparently dominate its loathsome wish list, yet laughably it claims there is still demand for traditional games such as Monopoly. No way. A couple of hours of participating in that despicable monument to capitalism would make David Cameron join the Shining Path in Peru, and as a Christmas Day "favourite" it ranks alongside discovering the turkey was only semi-thawed after you've swallowed the last "boingy" bit on your plate.

Whether Santa deigns to bring my sons anything is debatable - there is every chance both are ranked highly on his naughty list. But I do hope my daughter receives the FurReal Go Go Walking Pup, worth every penny of the 59.99 recommended retail price (should his brainless elves be unable to construct one) - assuming of course the name refers to a sumptuous pelt.

Your materialistic offspring care not one whit about the "quality time" you spend with them and the sooner you stop kidding yourselves and cough up for their new phone, Wii or fix of miaow miaow, the better for everyone.

• This article was first published in the Scotland on Sunday on November 7, 2010