Op-Ed: Christmas Is Coming So What's Your Present Nightmares? Here's A Top Five

It is that time of year again - Christmas, as if you needed reminding, yet despite wanting so many pressies, have you stopped to consider the very presents you dread getting? Here is a UK top 5

You're bound to come up with a few feared gifts of your own, yet here is what has been officially compiled by a well known British broadsheet, The Times - see what you think, I guess like me, you will probably agree with most of them... 1) First on he list is the good old fashioned, exercise bike - okay so it is a fairly expensive way to annoy someone and we can all think of half a dozen other inexpensive presents which would do the same job, yet it is guessed that around 98% of all sporty, uncomfortable looking, gut tightening, bikes with no wheels end up collecting dust in those unused, unimaginative spaces we call spare rooms. You read it here first - pass the gym department and the Spandex gifts if you can - think of Nike - don't do it. One thing can be said, they are jolly good at being substitute clothes horses... 2) Okay, vases - they sound fairly innocuous don't they and I must admit, there has been many a Christmas where I have been genuinely disappointed when I have reached for the last pine needle splintered box from underneath the tree and found that it was a collection of hankies, rather than that adoring glass blown vase which I have drooled over in the store all year long. Yet there is only one place apparently a glass vase will spend most of it's life is on top of a refrigerator. Never used, never to feel warmed to a limp bunch of supermarket blooms - I know you will shed a tear, but we are like that in the UK with our vases - cold. 3) The feel a strange warm smile come across my face at the next one - The novelty director’s chair! Again, another one which will book it's place at the back of the wardrobe. You would think that any budding theatre management student desperately grasping for that final year would be forever in your debt if you brought them a chair which resembles that belonging to Steven Spielberg when he shot "Close Encounters." Sadly, that's not the case, these wondrous items are not, as we would think, on the top of most Christmas wish lists. Those which have been given over the years, house many blankets and the like. So far, we have much to say about our laundry habits it would seem... 4) Now, I like to keep a hoard of spares in my desk drawer at the office, yet we turn a cold shoulder more often than not on that past love, the novelty mug. There was a time, around 20 years ago, where I can vividly remember these hot drink lovelies were warmly welcomed, cunningly disguised as a box before opened, yet cherished. Now it would seem that if you are particularly someone who needs to bring a mug from home for work, then I can see the aggravation of receiving one on Christmas morning. In the meantime, I have a "Seen it, done it, can't remember most of it" mug which I can, even today, remember slightly pushing round as I drank my tea at my desk, so that the group director would notice the deeply inscribed ditty. Alas, he probably thought I was a nerd - and even worse, that someone had bought me that mug for Christmas last year - worse still - the truth was I had bought it myself... So, the next time you see that one with the picture of a kitten in the wine glass, the pink one which says "Special Friend," in giant letters, or even the one which boasts a favourite sports team - leave it on the shelf - I have a cupboard full of them... 5) Last but no means least, cheap electrical equipment - things that look good in the box, sound wildly exciting even without the case of batteries it needs to come alive, and not to mention the most attractive asset of the lot - the price. These items are not worth it - last year I bought my son a race track, one that had to be put together with four hours of my undivided attention. It looked wonderful on Christmas Day but back in the box on Boxing Day, this is now my theory - Boxing Day is so rightly called Boxing Day because it is the day cheap stuff goes back in boxes - the only pain after that is waiting for the shops to open so you can take your place in the long queue of gifts being returned. These pressies look good I know as gifts for those we don't won't to spend too much on, but come on, would you honestly believe you could buy an iPod at a pound/five and dime shop? It's the old adage - if it seems too good to be true, it probably is. So there you have it, we could spend a fortune and to perfectly honest, that's exactly what the governments in your country and mine want us to do. So, if you want to keep it cheap this year - avoid the gifts that will end up in the bin - or even worse - given back to you the following year.... Happy Christmas.