With The Herald Magazine's cut-out-and-email-to-Amazon gift guide now just a tinsel-wrapped speck in the rearview mirror, it's time to take a look at the kind of Christmas present we men shouldn't give the woman in our life.
It isn't definitive by any means, but courtesy of website Ask Her Friends we can say it's one to which a degree of science has been applied.
The website surveyed nearly 1700 women and found that around half of them reported having received terrible presents from their partners at one time or another. And no, we're not talking about Minnesota Vikings bobble hats or cases of handcrafted artisan beer in weird flavours. It's much worse. Among the examples given were: windscreen wipers, nasal hair trimmers, a beard trimmer, a bag of compost, fake flowers, a metal detector and - my favourite, if only because it would be funny to ask the guy in the shop to gift wrap it - a cement mixer.
Not even the question "What do you give the girl who has everything?" deserves that as an answer.
The Ask Her Friends website, by the way, was set up as an advice-for-men resource by one Ben Blomerley after his girlfriend chucked him for the unforgivable crime of presenting her with a worm farm instead of, I don't know, a silver smartphone case encrusted with Swarovski crystals.
Talking of chucking, the website survey also found that 42% of woman would end a relationship with a man deemed to be deficient between the sheets. I mean the wrapping paper variety, not the Egyptian cotton sort though on that note one in 12 women did say they would have sex with a man who gave them the perfect Christmas gift. (The rate was much higher in Northern Ireland. Answers on a postcard please).
Now the sad bit: a quarter of British women have never had a present from their partner. That rises to nearly a third in the Midlands. Meanwhile only one in three Scottish women said their partners always bought great gifts.
Things are worse among marrieds, with 17% of wives saying their husbands didn't have a clue when it came to buying presents. It seems too many men still hand over the Argos catalogue and say: "Here you go darling, pick any one you like as long it has the Mow'n'Vac hover facility for that 18th-green-at-Muirfield look, and an engine capacity of 800 watts or above."
That just won't do any more. As you read this, there are 17 shopping days until Christmas, assuming the Royal Bank of Scotland's IT problems don't bring down the entire economic system around our ears. That means there's still time to surprise her, so buck up: if there's something wriggling in her stocking this Christmas, it needs to be a little more interesting than a worm farm.
barry.didcock@heraldandtimes.co.uk
Twitter: @barrydidcock
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