My Christmas crapness begun at an early age. When I was eight years old, I completely failed to get my father a Christmas present that year. This wasn’t a precautious statement and nor was it a crash and burn situation. I simply forgot, even though I’d seen the man every day in the festive run up and had, at some point, issued him with a checklist of presents I was keen for him to consider for me. This was utter remission on my part: Dad hadn’t been included in my mental notes of who to get presents for – he was just the guy that gave me a nice crisp purple note to enable me to make my visit to Wyevale (because as I recall, that’s where I did my Christmas shopping that year. Don’t laugh) fruitful in the gift department. My dear ol’ ma has always exercised encouragement of independence of thought amongst us, her children, and so wherever this exclusion occurred, she herself had overlooked the matter also.

The realisation came about on Christmas Eve, that I had nothing to give my father. But, in true Plum style, I totally wung it. My eight-year-old’s logic told me two things: one, that I needed something – whatever it was – to put under the tree with ‘To Dad, from Plum’ on a tag and, two, that it should ideally be sqaure-ish, like in Home Alone, and covered in paper and sellotape. Under my bed, I had an empty Kickers box that I was saving to fill up with something – probably slow worms – and on remembering this, I dug it out and wrapped it up. There was nothing in it, but, as one who liked empty boxes at the time, I thought my father (of whom I am 50% made up of after all) may well share my enthusiasm for a handy container.

When he opened my ‘present’ the following day, he was charmingly grateful (thanks, Dad) but did press me to explain. Improvising – and god knows where it came from – I told him that, of course the box appeared empty: “You see Daddy, love’s awfully difficult to wrap up, so I had to put it in a box.” Back o’ the net: he cried – probably the only time I’ve seen him do that – and told me it was the best present he’d ever been given in his life. He dined out on his ‘Box of Love’ story for months and months after that. So the story goes.

In case you’d not noticed, as this goes to press, there are a mere three-and-a-bit weeks until Christmas. I’m not the kind of person to militantly plan ahead, or at least, I don’t tend to do planning ahead especially well. Therefore, Christmas – particularly the gift bearing part – is more often than not, the classic last minute cliché where I’m concerned.

This year, though, I’ve surprised myself. Pre-empting that my bank account won’t be looking as abundant as the Christmas festive board, two weeks ago, I set about making all my presents for my friends and family. Unusually armed with a huge sense of yuletide spirit really quite early on in the year by my standards, I drew up a list (I checked it twice) of all the people I want to bestow some wrapped up wonder upon. Also armed with a deep sense of ‘make do’, the presents I’ve concocted thus far have been made from all manner of stuff I’ve found around my house.

2009’s been tough on Planet Plum, but before you whip out your violins and cluck sympathetically, 2009’s been a tricky one for lots of people. Friends of mine who were firing on all salaried cylinders in ‘08 have found themselves trotting down to the Jobcentre fortnightly to ‘sign on’, with their previous income nothing but a distant memory. Generally, void of mortgages, children and deep set life standards, us twenty-somethings might not feel the blows of the recession as smartly as some of our older counterparts may have, but it has been an income based bummer in that, where we’d only just got used to varying degrees of solvency, it’s been whipped away from right under our noses. Last in, first out and all that. Or if you’re a freelancer like me, an ever-steeper uphill struggle.

In that, when the bells on Santa’s sleigh start jangling faintly around the beginning of November (or September if you’re Tesco) and parents’ phone calls begin to be all Christmassed up in subject, the idea of sweet FA cash at this time of year is enough to turn us into a generation of Grinches: “Christmas, mum? I really haven’t given it much thought yet: it’s still October.” Familiar? Even my somewhat anti-consumerist mother turns into a total sprout when the C word comes round each year…

This year, I’ve really thought about what Christmas means to me, or should mean. It’s not exactly original, and pardon me for my slowness on the uptake, but the idea of love and celebrating the people who are close has really hit home this time around. My boyfriend, who’s overly continental to his approach to gathering friends and family – and waifs and strays – around our table in celebration at the drop of a hat for whatever reason, can’t bear Christmas. For the last six years, I’ve had to watch it with the C word simply to avoid domestic Armageddon, but this year’s been different, if just ever so slightly. In fact, I’d go as far to say he’s really quite looking forward to the 25th December: a turn up of the highest order for the books.

What I’ve found in challenging myself to make all my presents (we’re looking at around 50 gifts: see ‘A Child of Divorce’ in this month’s issue for more information, factoring into the equation my wonderful friends also) is that I know that when I eventually give them to their recipients, I’m really going to mean it, with utter love. Rather than blazing round the shops on Christmas Eve, as per the regular order my life tends to command (I’m sure we’re all extremely familiar with this scenario), uninspired and ever more stressed by my mental blocks on what the hell to get for one and all, every person’s gift is unique to them. I know they’ll love it – and that’s not megalomania talking – because I’m able to fashion them exactly the kind of thing I know they’d like.

Moreover, my Blue Peter stylee Christmas prologue has instilled in me more sparkle in my stockings than the Christmas elves combined. I’m down with the cheer and diggin’ Jingle Bell rock. In fact, like Slade, I really do wish it could be Christmas every day: what a lovely world it would be if we all rallied for love like this 365 days of the year.

Don’t worry: I’ve not gone balls out punch drunk on sherry, nor have I ‘double dropped’ to write this article. It’s just that love is totally punk rock and saying so shouldn’t just be the reserve of the Christmas season. And if you were wondering about my strike with the ‘Box of Love’, it wasn’t completely spontaneous. I’d gone to sleep on Christmas Eve thinking about what I’d really like to give my father and could only settle on one true thought. Shirts from M&S paled in comparison. The Kickers box I wrapped up was merely incidental.

Happy Christmas, one and all. May you all be ablaze with love and happinesses: you deserve it entirely.