MY inbox is bulging. Bulging with drivel, press release after sorry press release of largely pointless and irrelevant Christmas statistics.
So, here goes. Your Christmas according to press releases received....
Did you get a Christmas party at work this year? Well demand one.
Employers have been warned not to use the recession as an excuse for failing to acknowledge the efforts of their employees. 72 per cent of managers in a CMI survey said they believe that Christmas parties are important in helping to improve employee engagement.
Important. In fact they go one better. The word vital is used.
The survey found that three-quarters of managers also claimed that the office Christmas party is vital to recognise the hard work of staff undertaken throughout the year.
Vital. If you didn’t get a Christmas party, print this out and take it to your boss.
And if you’re struggling to pay for your own party, apparently the answer is simple – sell your gold.
Britons are selling even more of their junk jewellery in exchange for cash at gold parties on the run up to Christmas.
The world’s largest gold party organiser, Ounces to Pounds, has seen the average payout per customer rise from £250 to £480 per person at gold parties.
They currently organise 175 parties per month across the UK. The most popular area is Essex, followed by Hampshire then Central London, Manchester, Birmingham and Glasgow.
None in Wales then, perhaps the Principality’s gold reserves ran out many years ago.
But most people – presumably those without gold to sell – are planning a cut price Christmas.
According to research from uSwitch.com there will be less presents, fewer gadgets and more traditional children’s gifts.
But despite such noticeable changes, only a third (32 per cent) of those who are cutting back on children’s presents intend to tell kids the reason why.
10 per cent plan to buy children more traditional gifts such as board games. The first time I read this stat I read that 10 per cent of people planned to buy children.... a somewhat unusual gift.
And 56 per cent of people are spending less this year. Not only that but websites like Gumtree.com are reporting a huge spike in figures as people buy second-hand this year.
So who do you believe. Last Monday was Manic Monday, the busiest online shopping day of the year, when consumers shopped online to save money on their Christmas shopping.
New research from Kelkoo, the shopping comparison site, and the Center for Retail Research predicted that £417 million was spent online that day, a staggering £17 million an hour or £289,000 per minute.
The top 10 presents? Apparently its; LCD TV, Go Go Hamster, Apple iPod Touch, Netbook, Nerf, Converse, Wii Fit, Wii, PSC and Scalextric. LDC TV, I can’t wait....
But I must admit Go Go Hamster and Nerf mean nothing to me. I don’t know whether to be excited.
Online spending sprees are all very well – but fraud fears still haunt many people.
Britons are being warned to be vigilant with their credit and debit cards this Christmas as criminals target the hordes of shoppers returning to the high street.
New figures from life assistance company CPP, predict that over 315,000 shoppers risk falling prey to card fraud during the festive season, with the average sum set to be over £600.
The good news is this fraud is not just online.
This retail fraud epidemic is being fuelled by shoppers coming back to UK high streets. With an average Christmas present budget of £395, Brits are rejecting online to favour street shopping.
Sixty-five per cent will be buying at least half their gifts in person, while almost two-fifths will purchase the majority of presents on the high street, compared to just a quarter who will do so online.
Why the return to the High Street for Britain’s shoppers?
Well one in four shoppers is worried that online orders won’t arrive in time for Christmas.
So where to hide your presents? In a survey by Access Self Storage, over 43 per cent of parents said their poor gift hiding skills had resulted in children finding presents early.
Perhaps unsurprisingly this survey was conducted by a firm that wants you to go to the trouble to hiring storage space to stop the kids finding their presents.
£2.65 a week for a washing machine-sized locked apparently. £2.65 a week for a washing machine-sized locked or a free garage-sized garage?
Stuck for an unusual Christmas present idea, well how about a pension?
On average, adults spend three days, seven hours and two minutes per year shopping around for Christmas presents for their loved ones, pets and even their bin collectors.
This amounts to six months over a lifetime. In comparison, research showed that they will spend just five days in total shopping for the right annuity or pension product.
Were the researchers truly that surprised by this?
Darren Dicks, head of annuities for Aviva, said: “It’s great to see that people in the north west (a disturbing amount of PR companies think Powys is in the north west) are becoming more savvy as consumers and shop around to get the best deal.
However, it’s worrying that we might spend more time choosing Christmas presents for our dog than we would finding the best product to see us through the whole of our retirement!”
My family had better enjoy those pension funds they will find in their stockings.
That’s if we can even get to where the stockings will have been hung with care.
More than 12 million drivers are expected to put recessionary blues behind them and travel to spend Christmas with family or friends this year, according to new research from the AA.
Last Friday and today (Wednesday) were tipped to be the busiest day on the roads.
Three per cent of the population will travel more than 500 miles. Poor them.
And apparently 24% of the country’s 35-44 year olds would prefer to drive home rather than spend Christmas night with inlaws. Five per cent of men would drive 200 miles or more to avoid staying over.
But if, like me, you’ll be staying over, what will you be doing?
Well according to U0Switch (who have been busy....) 91% of us will watch a film.
A Christmas Carol topped their poll of festive favourites, followed by It’s a Wonderful Life, The Snowman, Wallace and Gromit, Miracle on 34th Street and White Christmas.
Hopefully the choice of film won’t cause too many arguments. According to Men’s Health it takes exactly 19 hours and 28 minutes arguing with next of kin to burn off the 3,122 calories in a Christmas dinner.
Surely it depends how heated the argument is?
There are other ways though. You could spend 20 hours 26 minutes folding clothes. Perhaps more popular is kissing – 38 hours 14 minutes. Up the ante to vigorous sex and your can knock about 11 hours off. Strangely though photocopying would be better for you, working it off in 17 hours 47 minutes.
Once Christmas - and your mammoth photocopying sesssion - are out the way, increasing numbers of people expect to travel at new year with one 21 per cent planning to travel more than 20 miles on New Year’s Eve with, unsurprisingly, the Scots (25%) most likely to be travelling for Hogmanay.
Yorkshire and Humberside has the most party poopers. I personally can vouch for this being true. My parents live in South Yorkshire and they’re not going anywhere. They never do.