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"  Jo Usmar is definitely not all present and correct...  Ah, Christmas. A time of peace, good will and crap presents for all mankind. A time of giving and receiving piles of old toot wrestled from a sweaty maniac in the middle of Marks and Sparks. Okay, so I may sound like a proper festive Grinch, but there&amp;#039;s something innately hideous about present buying. Don&amp;#039;t get me wrong, I&amp;#039;m not so selfish that I hate the thought of giving gifts. Quite the contrary \u2013 if I absolutely nail a present, if I get THE BEST PRESENT OF ALL TIME for someone, it&amp;#039;s a pretty spectacular feeling knowing I&amp;#039;ve done A Good Thing. A big festive slap on the back for me. But then there&amp;#039;s the other side - the horror of not having the faintest idea what to get your partner&amp;#039;s family. Some relative that you vaguely remember sneezing into the eggnog (what IS eggnog?) two years ago that you haven&amp;#039;t seen since. Because you&amp;#039;re going to be seeing them at some point over the Christmas holidays you&amp;#039;re expected to give them a present. Why? Are they going to get you one? No one knows. If you don&amp;#039;t get them something then the probability that they will have got you something inappropriately expensive and nice rises considerably. But if you get them a trinket that&amp;#039;s actually not completely rubbish they will no doubt pass you a 50p Santa hat which you&amp;#039;ll then have to wear while slapping on a fake jolly face ALL DAY. My blogging compatriot Laura recently wrote a post suggesting that Christmas is the season for singletons. That single people are destined to have a much better time than coupled-up folk because of scenarios just like this \u2013 and when it comes to family visits and present-buying I completely agree. Stats from MoneySupermarket reveal that men assume their partners will spend \u00A3100 on them while women reckon their boyfriends will spend approximately \u00A390. In reality men spend \u00A3131.90 on average while women folk shell out a comparatively measly \u00A393.50. So we&amp;#039;ll spend around \u00A340 less than men - which doesn&amp;#039;t reflect that well on us. Or does it? Are we actually being the sensible ones, saving our money rather than shelling out on crap &amp;#039;novelty&amp;#039; socks and slippers that will last a month before falling apart or behind the sofa never to be seen again? OR is everyone spending hundreds of pounds on wonderful life-changing presents that they&amp;#039;ve spent months planning? If so, then I feel ashamed. And yes, like a Grinch. And then there&amp;#039;s the moment when your boyfriend says &amp;#039;Shall we not get each other anything this year and just save some money for X?&amp;#039; You agree eagerly. Hurray! One present off the list! And then you think, &amp;#039;Hmm...he&amp;#039;s definitely going to buy me something. Just a little tiny thing to show how much he cares. If I don&amp;#039;t get him anything I&amp;#039;ll look really bad.&amp;#039; So off you go out into a blizzard and buy him a \u00A340 dressing gown from Habitat. On Christmas day you triumphantly pass over your present. Look at me! I&amp;#039;m the best person ever! And then you wait...and wait...and get NOTHING. Because that&amp;#039;s the deal you made and he stuck to it. But hey ho, that&amp;#039;s what Christmas is about. The not-knowing, the panicking and then hopefully the OHMYGODIGOTAREALLYGOODPRESENT feeling. It&amp;#039;s pretty fun. My philosophy is to buy everyone a little something...just in case. So if someone&amp;#039;s half uncle&amp;#039;s brother&amp;#039;s flat mate does produce a gift I can produce a trinket from my go-to stock pile of unisex gifts with a flourish. It is the season of giving after all. Please follow me on Twitter for more ramblings @Jousmar K-STEW AND R-PATZZ DILEMMA: SO WHAT CONSTITUES CHEATING? A REAL LIFE SEX AND THE CITY REVELATION WHY THROWING UP ALL OVER HIS SHOES IS THE TRUE TEST OF LOVE "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.cosmopolitan.co.uk/love-sex/sex/a2034/happy-birthday-sexting-clone-1355910735/>