This year Liz has been extremely prepared with Christmas. She really wanted to keep the seasonal stress and last minute effort required to a minimum - no need to encourage an early birth after all.

So Liz started our Christmas shopping about three months ago! Apart from a couple of bits that actually couldn't be bought earlier, she had finished before December even started!

Now this sounds like a great plan. Get things done early, plenty of time to think about what to buy, with just as much time to spread the wrapping over too.

But this year there have been some slightly "different" economic conditions around. Almost everything and certainly most things gift like have been getting steadily cheaper over the last month or two.

So now several of our (well Liz's) carefully prepared gifts are actually worth as much as 50% less than when we bought them! So if you got a gift from us this year and feel a bit short changed, we're sorry but that's just the cost of being prepared!

Take from this what lessons you will.

(Personally I got very good value for money on the gifts I arranged, just a few days before they were required. Unfortunately I was up until 1am Christmas morning wrapping them!)