CHRISTMAS comes but once a year and when it does, it lasts from the end of August until the day before Christmas Eve, when the shops start clearing the decks to start the January sales on Boxing Day.

The smug have done their present buying in the July sales and have got everything wrapped and beribboned by now. The rest of us are still looking at the list and realising how little we've ticked off it.

One thing no-one on my list will get, and wouldn't even if I did have £3,615 to spend on them, is a set of five watches, each featuring a superhero from Marvel comic - you know, The Hulk, The Thing, Spider Girl and so on.

No-one is going to let a child loose with Spider Girl and her 136-diamond-set bezel; one jokey watch is more than most adults need, and five is so far over the top it's practically in orbit.

Even so, they aren't Mrs Cave's Christmas present from Hell 2003, although that, too, involves a timepiece.

It's a wall clock, set in a Christmas wreath, which plays a different carol every hour, on the hour, while lights flash in time to the music. Worse than that, before it plays the carol, it says: "Ho, ho, ho, Merry Christmas.

Mercifully, a light sensor shuts it up when the room is in darkness, so there's always the cupboard under the stairs.

The only thing reasonable about this monstrosity is the price of £10. Well, £9.99 actually, but that fools no-one.

My Christmas shopping hasn't been helped by finding just the thing for the friend whose present, this year, demands tip-toeing tact, and then realising the order for it must have fallen foul of the London postal strike. Don't tell me I should have bought it locally or on-line, those options weren't open. I'll live in hope for another week or so.

Full marks to Royal Mail, though, for bringing me Recipes From Hutton Rudby Village Hall the day after it was posted. The e-mail telling me it was on its way took three days, by which time I'd read the book and picked out a savoury recipe for this week and a sweet one for next week.

If you want a stocking-filler, or a small present, for a keen cook, here it is. It's all of £4.50 and full of recipes you know will work because they're contributed by those who use them.

There's a new twist on Coronation chicken, for instance, and damson gin, the delighfully-named cherry winks, tropical ice-cream pie, local MP William Hague's cream of nettle soup (or does Ffion make that?), a quick barbecue chutney, plus dishes from around the world.

There's Shirley-Ann Widlf's frangipane, a favourite in our family since she gave it to me for this column years ago, plus the "how to" of other favourites she makes for Stokesley WI market.

It's spiral-bound and with a wipe-clean cover. All money raised from its sale goes to rebuild an ailing village hall and anyone who's lived in a village knows how important a decent hall is to local life.

For a copy, telephone fundraising chairman Richard Hodgson on 01642 780445.