SEASON’S greetings, pop pickers. It’s that time when the fat bloke who only works once a year appears into your lives to shower you with riches and fill you with festive glad tidings.

In fairness, I sometimes do stuff around April time, too. Ask my probation officer.Christmas really is a magical time, unless you’re a football writer that is.

The sight of Storm Barbara wheeching your laptop into the air and catapulting it across a press box is enough to make you cry into your mulled Bovril.

For the rest of Scottish football, this time of year offers up the too-good-to-be-missed chance of testing out those new thermal pants in temperatures that make Kilmarnock’s new ice chamber feel like a sauna.

It’s also a time for sheer madness, as the latest spat between Rangers supporters and Little Mixers – no, not the toaty wee gingers for your vodka that cost more than your plane ticket on an Easyjet flight – really does prove that when it comes to madhouses, our game up here is up there with the best of them.

Joe Garner has achieved cult status at Rangers with a red-hot goal ratio of one in every six games. So much so that fans of the Ibrox club have launched a campaign to get the song they have been singing for him, Glad All Over, to Christmas No.1. Rangers in top spot? A festive miracle indeed.

As football songs go, Dave Clark Five’s is far from the worst. At least it’s a bit creative. After all, in 2004 we had Millwall’s Oh Millwall, while in 2010 Leeds United released Leeds, Leeds, Leeds. Let it not be said that football clubs have no imagination.

You can’t blame the Rangers fans for choosing something light-hearted to get behind. It’s hardly been a glowing start to their return to the Premiership but they have shown some consistency over recent weeks, even if they are hardly setting the mistletoe alight.

GARNER’S hero status and inclusion is a pec-uliar one, though. Costing around £1.8million when he was brought in from Preston North End at the start of the season, he genuinely hasn’t been much to shout – or sing – about.

As industrious as he is, it was never a given that he was going to hit goals – he only managed six from 44 appearances last season.

But the question remains, is it enough to play in that position and put yourself about when you are a striker at an Old Firm club? I’d say no.

I’m well aware that this column may act as some sort of jinx that will see him go on to bag a hat-trick today, but if he’s going to remain a chart-topper with supporters and keep his place in the team, he needs to come up with a few smash hits between the sticks that will go some way to allowing him to live up to his reputation – and cost.

AND ANOTHER THING

Massive credit has to go to the SMiSA St Mirren fans’ group who this week voted to contribute over £9,000 towards Jack Ross’ January transfer budget. That will probably get you Joe Garner for about a week and a half.

In all seriousness, it was an early Christmas present that we should all take heart from. Fan ownership at a club the size of Saints was always going to be tricky, but it’s gestures like this that go to show that a little from a small number can make a big difference.

It may not sound a lot but that sum could be enough to chip in for wages for a loan player to keep them up. Not a bad New Year.