Before The Boy was born when I was a full-time primary school teacher, I found that I had to be ultra organised when it came to Christmas. While the vast majority of the second half of the Autumn Term is given over to preparing the children for the magical events with cards, calendars, concerts and chaos, it was very easy to completely dismiss the event when 'off-duty' in the evenings and weekends.

I discovered that I needed to be über organised to avoid the festive season completely passing me by; I always wrote my (January sales) Christmas cards in the October half-term, bought the special edition stamps as soon as they were available and made a note in my phone to send them on a certain day. Wrapping paper and ribbon would be bought and set aside with scissors and sellotape ready for the evening of gift-wrapping with a sneaky Baileys. However, the actual present buying invariably happened when I 'broke-up' from school and I'd end up buying anything and everything, spending far too much money.

Now that I'm working part-time and I'm able to spend more time thinking sensibly about the whole malarky, and I get a chance to enjoy it through The Boy's enthusiasm. We've started making Christmas cards and talking about the special things that we'll do together as a family. I've also got all of his presents sorted out in the spare bedroom, bar small stocking fillers, etc.

The one who I have nothing for is Mr. TBaM! Whoops!

Problem is, that I have no idea what on Earth to buy for him. I know he'd love a Kinect thingy but I'm on a limited budget now and he can carry on dreaming about that. It's at times like this that I settle down with some of the money-saving websites and start scouring them for presents that would appeal to him, buying electronics online is so easy. As he's just upgraded his phone to an iPhone 5, I think he'd really like this iPhone controlled helicopter, that is if he could wrestle it from The Boy (a technical genius in the making!).

However, maybe I'd be better off getting him something that benefits me instead of annoying me? As he never seems to cook anymore I think perhaps this personalised cookbook would be a good idea; lots of easy recipes for him to surprise me with when I get home from work after him!

Let's face it, I'll probably end up buying him a yard-long Jaffa Cakes tube and a packet of Toffifees like last year!

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