I’VE been thinking back recently over the weird things I asked my maw to get me for Christmas when I was a wee guy.

‘I know wit big present I want this year,’ I said, heaving an Argos catalogue, far too heavy for my skinny wee arms, into my maw’s room. ‘But it’s no in the book.’ I closed the catalogue over for dramatic effect and dropped it down on the floor with a thud.

‘Wit is it?’ she replied with a sigh. She knew she was about to be presented with an insurmountable task.

‘See Dumbo?’

‘… Aye?’

‘Right, well. There’s this bit in Dumbo when he gets drunk.’

‘…’

‘And he sees aw these different-coloured elephant heids.’

I’m sure at this point she rolled her eyes and contemplated sending me to Maggie Murphy’s home for bad, unruly and incredibly difficult boys.

‘Aw the heids come together to make a guy made of elephant heids. I want that.’

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I’m sure something snapped in my maw that day, something that’s no been quite right since.

No wonder. Severed heads must have been some kind of obsession for me as a child as I was informed recently that I also asked, once upon a time, for a reindeer head. Perhaps hoping

to turn my bedroom into a make-shift hunting lodge.

She got her own back on me a couple of years later, however. This must’ve been around the year 1999. I was desperate for a PlayStation and was the only one of my pals who didn’t have one. Naturally, I wrote it at the top of my list, circled it in the catalogue, spoke about how I was going to set it up myself and what games I wanted and also, crucially, how good I’d be in exchange for the console.

I woke up that Christmas morning, saving, as I always did, the ‘big’ present until last. A large rectangular box sat waiting for me on the couch. I tore my ‘wee’ presents open in a frenzy, with one eye always kept on the big one. New clothes and jammies were graciously accepted until it was only the PlayStation left to open.

It crossed my mind that I was yet to open any games for the machine. No matter, I thought, I’d simply use my meagre savings to get one in the sales the following day. I’d waited years to play my own computer, I could wait one more day. What I had opened a surprising quantity of however was VHS tapes.

Videos of football howlers, Austin Powers, Jurassic Park and even a Mr Blobby classic. Excellent gifts for an eight-year-old boy, I would watch them tonight as I bided my time until I could get my hands on a game tomorrow.

My hands trembling, with excitement I carefully peeled back the wrapping paper on the big present. Gently removing the Sellotape and unwrapping with the dexterity of a brain surgeon. I saw a Sony logo peeking out at me. It was happening. This felt the like most important moment of my life. Then I saw in big letters: VHS PLAYER. I looked at my maw, her face brimming with pride, assuming she’d just delivered me all my hopes and dreams that Christmas morning. ‘Aw, a new video player,’ I said with a smile. A smile that masked my crushed hopes.

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‘Aye, the wan you’ve got the noo is dead auld and mince.’ I gave her a cuddle and thanked her. I was very much aware that I had to not be an ungrateful wee toerag. I eventually used it so much it so much that it actually sparked and died a couple of years later. The guilt made me an obsessive recorder of stuff on the telly I had no desire to watch.

To compound my guilt at feeling ungrateful over this, my maw told me recently how she asked for one thing and one thing only for Christmas when she was eight. She told my granny that it didn’t matter if she didn’t get her anything else, as long as she got this one wee thing.

It was simply a calculator. On Christmas morning she awoke to a wee bundle of presents with the calculator sitting proudly at the top. It was a beautiful wee thing, she said. It came in a wee brown wallet to keep it nice and safe, ready to be unsheathed and used for division in a heartbeat. She spent Christmas Day, Boxing Day and well into the New Year just sitting alone, doing wee sums. The happiest lassie in the world.

I could end this on a cheesy, clichéd note about how we all need to be a bit more grateful around this time of year and less materialistic, etc, etc. But things like the Gift Tree at the Forge shopping centre being so overwhelmed with gifts for disadvantaged kids that they had to actually request that the donations stop, shows that folk are really looking out for each other and looking out for the less fortunate this year and it really is lovely to see.

Keep up the good work, troops.