If you’re listening, Santa, here is a list of some of the things I don’t want

ONE OF the best presents that came my way was a (very) basic Meccano set. I never finished constructing a robot or building site crane, but perforated strips of red or green metal turned up in unlikely places for years afterwards. I want the excitement of that day to continue.

So a quick word to all you Santa “helpers” out there, gallantly putting in shifts to ease the great man’s burden. You do have a moment? I’m grateful.

I know you’re incredibly busy, like the Post Office only more so, but could I enter a plea from the under-10s and the over-60s? A touch more authenticity, if you please. It is a question of imagination.

The fact is standards are slipping. Perhaps you have seen the multiplying doorstep signs “Santa stop here”. It’s an order. It is the desperate, uncompromising voice of an assertive, positive, go for it, we-know-what-we-wantand-we-want-it-now generation of junior present unwrappers. So let’s get a few things straight.

In the spirit of what this is all about, here are a few tips. Please do not wear designer glasses. You know, the ones with the coloured ear-grips. They may look cool to you but they leave us colder than a reindeer’s bottom.

Second, Santa substitutes can’t be athletic types bouncing round the grotto like Jessica Ennis’s trainer. Slow is good. Slow and heavy is even better.

Third, do not, on pain of beard-tugging, attempt to be matey. Confident kids are not impressed, timid ones may be terrified.

Fourth, do not glance at your ultra macho multi-dial divers’ watch and signal Big Elf to slide out the “Santa is resting” sign when children are still waiting. For heaven’s sake, it’s only once a year. Fifth, cover tattoos. OK for Maoris in a death dance, not so appropriate in a shopping mall.

I concede that I could and should set an example. For the record, I have in the past donned the sacred scarlet robes, shouldered the sack, and faced the toughest fraud jury in the world: primary children. But this year I’m going a step further. I want to help ease the volume of sleigh freight. So here’s my personal list of what I do NOT want:

Please, no ipods, iphones, tablets or notebooks. I have a small radio that works well upstairs if I point the aerial carefully. That’s fine. So for me, at least, you do not have to buy in from the lucrative kingdom of apps.

Scrub just about anything beginning with p. That includes party pants, pliers, puddings, publishers’ specials, peanuts, paperback humour and pork pies (can’t stand the jelly). Aftershave is for adolescents. Socks and gloves fill my cupboards. Ditto scarves.

Having a mind that closed to improvement years ago, I can well do without anything overtly educational. Neither do I have an interest in giving (or receiving for that matter) a third world goat. Ethical gifts are for ethical people and they are not of my tribe.

There was a time when outdoor pursuits claimed my leisure time but there is enough gear in this house to stock an adventure centre.

It’s lovely that people contribute to donkey sanctuaries but, please, not in my name. I am too old to be aroused by 50 shades of pink, unless it refers to a collection of cyclamen.

Can we avoid vouchers for “experiences”? Good luck to middle-aged hot air balloonists and charity parachutists. They can do without my green nausea and false bravado.

And while we’re on the subject of travel, I am unlikely to make good use of away days to struggling hotels staffed mainly from Katowice.

Santa, old pal, you will have sussed by now, I hope, that my theme today is resolutely negative. It is only by being so that I hope to enjoy the little treats that otherwise would be buried in the avalanche of giving – especially begrudged giving.

I do, however, approve of genial feasting. So feel free to drop by with a pot of brandy butter or crystallised fruits. A bottle of Caol Ila never goes amiss.

Top of my list would be something noone can buy. It is waking in the dark to feel lumpy, rustling parcels at the foot of the bed. So I want that for my grandchildren. For all grandchildren.

Oh, and if at the bottom of the sack you have an old Meccano set, red and green, with wheels and pulleys, that really would be something. Thanks.

You’ve got to get the look just right . . . Billy Bob Thornton in the movie Bad Santa.