Photograph: Martin Leigh/Getty Images
I have a relative who is famous – OK, infamous – for their terrible gift-giving. Now, I don’t think that being poor at presents discounts you from being considered a generous, kind, altruistic person. There are many people in this world, I’m sure, who make good meals, listen sympathetically and remember important dates, but when confronted with a range of gifts will scream, fill their knickers and dive headfirst into a skip, only to emerge two hours later with the collected chunks of your present that year. I’m almost certainly one of them. That doesn’t make us bad people. It just makes us a somewhat spicy addition to any big day.
One rather memorable Christmas, when I was a large and rather lumpy 10-year-old, this relative gave me a pair of white woollen tights in a size XS. They barely reached my knees. So what, I hear you say. And exactly. So what? Kids grow so fast these days. White is a very flattering and easy-to-wear colour. It’s actually quite nice to look as if you’ve wrapped both legs in a set of poorly fitting bandages and just needed somewhere in the middle to store your bricks. A low-hanging, white woollen gusset that almost cuts off the blood supply to your thighs is a nice present and a nice thought.
