To my adored friends and family,

We need to talk.

I love that you love my kids. My kids love that you love my kids.

I love that come Christmas, their piles under the tree are teetering towers of enormousness, and not even half of it cost me a cent. Or, more importantly, several hours of rummaging around on the lower shelves of the racks at Toys R Us while people step on my head.

Holly and her family preparing for the Christmas period.

I love that you thought about them long enough to consider them when you were Christmas shopping. I love that you remembered that Matilda is still in her pink phase and that Billy genuinely thinks he’s a dinosaur.

I love that about you. Seriously.

But here’s the thing. And I know I sound like an ungrateful arse. I may well be an ungrateful arse, and a bad mother, for what I am about to say. But someone needs to say it, so here goes.

Not all presents are good presents.

You see, anything you buy for my children will live in my house and impact my life. And call me selfish, call me Grinchy, but to be honest, things are pretty fraught around here at the best of times, and throw in a blaring plastic fire engine with no volume control and life could really take a turn.

So here, so we can all still be friends, are the six things that you should please refrain from buying my kids this Christmas. Believe me, I’m doing us all a favour.

1. Drums.

I know, you’re scoffing. Like, who would DO THAT, really? But one of my most lovely and wonderful friends did exactly this last year. She ‘did it to’ one of our other friends – bought her daughter an adorable Dora The Explorer drum kit. Our mutual friend appeared to be delighted, and the four-year-old girl who received them was certainly beside herself, but seriously? If you pulled that in my house I would have been tempted to stage a minor house-fire to disappear them.

While we’re at it, let’s throw in recorders, whistles, those automated keyboards that are ALWAYS too loud. Basically, anything that requires musical talent to make it even just a little bit audibly bearable. Let’s just leave that alone until there IS some actual talent in the house.

2. Loom bands.

They’re over. And I’ve never been happier. Because my kids are too little for them, but think that they’re not. So when my daughter says “Let’s Play Loombands”, what she means is, “Sit next to me, Mummy, while I hand you teeny plastic bands one at a time, until you lose the circulation in your fingers.”

I don’t want any presents that require my full involvement, thank you. Again, I’m a bad mother, but I have Things To Do. Things that don’t involve retrieving 43545043 luminious plastic loops from every crevice of the couch.

3. Lego.