Chitra Ramaswamy: Making a deer’s ear of it

I’M CUTTING it fine this year. Nine days to go and I have yet to buy a single present.

OK, apart from a venison ear for Daphne, my dog, but I’m not sure that gifts for loved ones with more than two legs count in the kindness stakes. Especially one that is basically a dead deer. Not very Rudolf friendly, is it?

Meanwhile, Mega Monday (the biggest day for online shopping) and ‘appy hour’ (when everyone takes to their tablets and mobile phones in a fit of panic purchasing) pass me by like so many crazed Christmas shoppers on Princes Street.

I don’t hear Fairytale of New York once. I try to record Elf off the telly and it mysteriously fails to work. I’m unable to start my annual Christmas Dickens novel (it was supposed to be Little Dorrit, since you ask) because I’m still, would you believe it, ploughing through Anna Karenina.

Basically, it’s like Christmas isn’t coming this year. I may as well go around snipping tinsel off trees, shooting stereos playing Slade, and running The Truth About Father Christmas workshops for children. If I carry on this way, the folk fortunate enough to know me will end up with a Brussels sprout from the reduced section on the big day.

And so, one icy Saturday before Christmas, I decide it’s time to face the inevitable. A couple of friends are running stalls at a local Christmas fair. There will be mulled wine, mince pies, scented candles, and nowhere to hide. I try and enlist C’s company, but if I’m Bad Santa, C is the Grinch. This means a prompt refusal on the grounds that, “I hate Christmas fairs and, besides, I’m off to B&Q to buy insulation for the toilet.” Fine. Whatever. I can handle it on my own.

The fair, for a start, costs money to enter, which is highly offensive if you’re Scrooge in a skirt. Inside, it’s full of shoppers with ruddy cheeks, satisfied smiles and arms laden with bags of thoughtful, one-off, clever-clever gifts.

I wander around and stroke a few scarves half-heartedly. I have a long, animated conversation with a stall holder about Daphne and the cruel stereotyping of staffies. I buy a cup of tea and some pork dumplings. So far I’ve parted with £15 and have absolutely nothing to show for it. I meet a friend running a vintage stall. “Ah, shame,” she says.

“I just sold the perfect present for C – a brown woolly jumper with little white polkadots. You missed it by seconds.” I decide to console myself by buying a cashmere cardigan. For myself.

Eventually, once the consumer desperation has really kicked in, I find a tartan blanket made from pieces of reclaimed tweed. “I’m sure this will make a thoughtful gift for someone,” I think, secretly picturing Daphne snoring on the scratchy wool. Plus, it’s only £15, which is a mere fraction of the reported £526 that HSBC reckons each of us spends over Christmas. Result. I start rummaging through my purse and realise I’ve spent my cash on dumplings and, this being a Christmas fair, they don’t take cards.

Afterwards C picks me and my cardigan of Christmas shame up on the way back from B&Q. We talk about the brown jumper that could have been, and wonder why the car is screaming again. “This week,” I promise. “I’ll finish Anna Karenina, start circling films in the Radio Times, get the tree, sort everyone’s presents, and campaign for world peace.” “OK, OK,” says C. “But first things first. Let’s insulate the toilet.”

Twitter: @Chitgrrl