I WAS in Tesco at the weekend trying to get ahead of the game with Christmas cards etc, when I came across a wee cheeky faced four-year old who told me his name was Charlie.

“Santa’s coming soon.” He beamed.

“Yes, I know he is.” I smiled back.

“Have you been a good girl then?” He asked me.

“Because if you haven’t, Santa won’t bring you anything.”

“Oh yes, I’ve been a very good girl.”

The wee chap was nodding his head.

“Have you been a good boy?”

Charlie looked at his mum before he answered.

“Most of the time I’m a good boy, but sometimes I don’t eat my dinner because my mum makes rubbish dinners.”

I couldn’t help laughing as his mum shook her head, obviously used to her wee cherub landing her in it.

“Oh well, I’m sure Santa’s been keeping an eye on you all year round and you’ll get something nice.”

He wasn’t for budging from my trolley so I asked.

“What special toy have you asked Santa for this year?”

“A Hoover,” was the very unexpected answer.

“A Hoover?”

“Yep.” I thought his head was going to drop off nodding.

“I’ve got two Hoovers.” He sounded pleased with himself.

I looked at his mum as though he was telling tall tales, but she confirmed.

“Yes, he’s got two Hoovers and he loves them.”

“What kind of Hoover have you got then? I asked, thinking I’d catch him out.

“I’ve got a Dyson and a Henry.” Charlie seemed chuffed with his toys.

“Have you got a Hoover?” He asked.

“Yes, Charlie, I’ve got the exact same as you.” I confirmed. “I’ve got a Dyson and a Henry too.”

Apparently Charlie wanted yet another Hoover from Santa, which I thought was peculiar for a child so young.

“Well Charlie, I hope you’ve been a very good boy and Santa brings you what you want.”

Relaying my chat with Charlie to the girls at our weekly catch up we began regaling stories of the unusual Christmas presents we received.

And some seemed to be more than a little bit disappointing.

“At least wee Charlie wanted a Hoover for his Christmas,” moaned Fiona. “Because I certainly didn’t.”

Apparently Fiona’s very first Christmas with her new husband didn’t go quite as she had hoped.

“When I saw this beautiful big box wrapped in shiny gold paper with red bows, I was so excited and had no clue what it might be.”

We were all ears.

“I lifted it, shook it, and finally ripped the paper off to discover a bloody Hoover!”

Our silence said it all.

“I was so disappointed.”

Fiona added: “But it got worse.”

“Because when I unwrapped my second parcel, which was beautifully wrapped too, I discovered a packet of six spare Hoover bags.”

There wasn’t a lot we could say to that story until Angela added.

“I got a wooden toilet seat one year and I can tell you I was less than pleased.”

Angela’s toilet seat was starting to make Fiona’s Hoover seem not too bad a Christmas gift after all!

All in all there seemed to have been some pretty awful and thoughtless gifts received by most of my friends and their family, but we all agreed that one of the most unusual gifts received was by Mae’s brother Paul.

When Paul was a young lad his great aunt presented him with a very unusual shaped parcel, which turned out to be an ornamental Boomerang!

“Was she over here from Australia?” I stupidly asked.

“No.” Replied Mae. “She’s lived in Shettleston all her life.”

“The best bit was. “ Giggle Mae.

“Because it was ornamental Paul said as much as he really hated it, he couldn’t even throw it away!”

That comment did make us laugh when Maggie added.

“Well, I suppose the good presents outweigh the crappy ones and sometimes you’re even better just getting money.”

But last year Maggie’s husband Martin got £100 from his gran to buy the trainers he wanted for Christmas and visited her on Christmas Day to show her his expensive Nike Air Max trainers.

Martin handed his gran one shoe to inspect and sat the other aside.

His gran inspected the shoe inside and out before asking “Oh, lovely son, is that what you get for £100 nowadays?”

As they chatted they both looked at each other and wondered what the peculiar smell was.

Turning around, they quickly noticed that one of Martin’s new expensive trainers was on fire because the numpty had sat it on the cooker and hadn’t noticed that his gran had forgotten to turn off the gas ring off.

And that was the end of Martin’s expensive Christmas trainers.