Blog: Here we are again, then, right in the middle of the most expensive time of year. We’ve made it through Halloween’s gimmicky, super-commercialised traditions, Bonfire Night is still ringing in our ears, and boom – here comes Christmas.

It’s times like these that make me thankful I don’t have a clutch of kids to placate with scary outfits and firework displays, never mind the Christmas lists.

Not being entirely child-friendly, it wasn’t until Halloween arrived and I saw other shoppers buying sweets for Trick or Treating goodie-bags that it occurred to me I might need to prepare for the night ahead.

But, like a true singleton, I decided to wing it, struggling to remember the last time I’d actually seen gaggles of childish ghosties knocking on doors. Until, of course, the moment dusk fell and a small group of knee-high Halloweeners came a-tapping at my door.

Seeing their hopeful and highly-painted faces, goodie-bags wide open and aimed at me like a nestful of hungry, open beaks, I flew into the panic of the unprepared and ended up guiltily throwing a pound into each bulging bag.

Fleeced for a fiver at my own front door! I swiftly shut it and turned off the outside light, hoping to deter further visitors, but it’s not so simple for the poor parents out there.

We moan about kids expecting too much at Christmas, wanting the latest toys and gadgets like their friends, but I can’t help wondering if it’s actually the needs of mums and dads to keep up with the Joneses through the festive season that sees Yuletide wreaking fiscal havoc for them throughout the following year.

After all, most rugrats are happier playing with the box than whatever came in it, and teenagers make all sorts of expensive requests but don’t truly expect us to fulfil them all.

My friend was lamenting, last Christmas, the huge amount of money her three children were costing to kit-out with presents for the big day.

But when asked why she didn’t downsize their demands and just buy fewer and smaller gifts, she looked horrified and said she couldn’t give her children less than next-door’s offspring were getting.

She knew exactly what her neighbour had spent on each one and the thought of her kids getting any less was unbearable. So she crippled herself financially . . . all to achieve someone else’s dreams.

With times so hard, Shropshire parents will be guilt-ridden at their inability to give the kids everything they want, but perhaps Christmas will start coming back to its less commercial roots — here’s hoping.

I’m not suggesting a stocking full of satsumas and a whistle but, just maybe, kids are easier to please than you think.

That said, I’ll leave the job of streamlining Santa Season to the mums and dads while I turn all the lights off and hide behind the sofa until the whole thing’s over and done with for another year.

There are some perks for the childless after all!

By Emma Suddaby