As each Christmas goes by I find the whole gift giving ritual more and more bewildering. OK, I'm an old misery, but it just feels so unnecessary. We don't really need any of this stuff: these books, DVDs, prints, badly fitting clothes, grooming lotions, and socks…actually, no, socks are good.

All that people are wanting for in my particular part of the country is a sense of purpose, and that's something that Amazon can't provide, even at Christmas.

Unlike Scrooge, though, I do quite enjoy giving presents to other people. It's the receiving that I particularly dislike. I generally just don't need any of it (apart from the socks). Oxfam must do tremendous business each January.

Though it may chime with the times, this must all make me sound incredibly spoilt, turning my nose up at my loved ones' gifts. I simply find the whole ritual of consumption slightly embarrassing when set against the backdrop of climate change and economic crisis around the world. It serves as a stark reminder just how little I personally do to improve things.

My uncle Michael had obviously been having similar thoughts. Michael and his son, my cousin, are both artists, and so he instigated a mini family auction of some of their new paintings, with the money going to charity.

Even though it probably did much more to assuage our liberal guilt than anything else, I hope we roll it out fully next year, to replace normal gift giving, even though it means that I'll have to attempt to produce something that people will want to bid for.

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