I've been thinking about the real costs of Christmas, and the song The 12 Days of Christmas popped up. If you had a true love who gave you all that stuff, what would he really be spending on you? This may not be a good way to evaluate a realtionship, but you know damned well that 99.9% of people do a quick mental calculation on what each Christmas gift cost the giver.

All these prices are in AUD and are based on the going internet prices. You would need to add shipping over the 12 days too. I didn't include a calculation for bulk buying discounts, but I am sure that could be organised once you have a chat to the suppliers.

Thinking further, you won't just be buying 1 pear tree, for as the song goes - you'll be buying 1 pear tree a day for 12 days. I have shopped around, and tried to keep the costs down by suggestion practical subsitutions.

Even so, buckle up true lovers! It's going to cost you a bomb.

1 x partridge $25 (we don't have these in Australia, so it will have to be a guinea fowl, which is much prettier) 

1 x pear tree $35 (bare rooted and ready to plant but you can only do this in winter, not summer)

2 x turtle doves $ 70 (can't get these in Australia either, so pure white fantail pigeons would work well)

3 x french hens $60 (French hens are too delicate for Australian conditions, so I suggest you use Australorps at point-of-lay)

4 x calling birds $100 (These will have to be canaries as catching the 'calling birds' otherwise known as blackbirds, from the wild is too hard)

5 x golden rings $1,250 (The price of gold these days has pushed up prices alarmingly. If you could settle for toe rings, the price would be less)

6 x geese a-laying $240 (You'll need to collect the eggs each day or they will go broody - what are you going to do with all those eggs?)

7 x swans a swimming $3,000 (I have included here the costs of installing the dam for them to swim in)

8 x maids milking $1,600 + $3,000 (This is calculated at 8 maids working full time hours @$25/hour, plus the $3,000 is for the cows. This cost could be lower if you chose a smaller animal to milk such as goats or sheep)

9 x ladies dancing $200 (I recommend using your local line-dancing group - easier to get on with and a damn sight cheaper. Professional dancers are not recommended, due to their high-strung natures)

10 x lords leaping $200 (see notes above refering to your 9 ladies - the ladies are bound to have husbands who would be willing to leap about in a lordly fashion, as long as you cover the cost of their beer)

11 x pipers piping $500 (call the police pipe band and offer to make a donation to their Christmas party)

12 x drummers drumming $800 (see notes above refering to pipers, as most pipe bands include a bunch of drummers)

Total cost for the 12 Days of Christmas:

$291,540.00

I really have tried to keep the costs as low as possible here, making what I feel are practical, useful substitutions. You could save some money by ringing around, rather than ordering everything exclusively on-line. Home delivery is always costly, and I'm sorry, but I don't know how else you are going to do this, without buying everything in advance and walking it all over to your true love's house each day. Hope she lives close.

As the song goes, you will be sending a lot of items each day, and doubling, tripling etc as each day goes by. Please keep in mind these other practical considerations:

• Cost of feed for the partridges, doves, calling birds, geese & swans
• Cost of a hole digger to dig 12 holes for the pear trees
• Cost of water and setting up the reticulation system to water the trees
• Cost of aviaries, fencing and fox-proofing pens for the birds
• Cost of accomodation and feed for the maids, plus worker's comp and training
• Cost of keeping the cows in feed and pasture, and a vet check before you send them to the knacker's.
• Cost of food & accommodation for all those ladies dancing and lords leaping
• Cost of transport for the pipers and drummer, plus food & accommodation
• Cost of a first-aid trained person, as well as an OH&S inspector
• Insurance!
• Some of your costs may be offset by the money you could make from selling the livestock to the local butcher, less the costs of slaughtering and dressing the stock and birds.

Good luck with this. All I can say is I'm gald I said no and can save myself the costs and headache.

Yesterday I received my first Christmas party invitation - but it's only October 5th.

How does this happen? I understand people want to be organised, but really - October 5th? It makes it really hard to use the excuse of having something else on that day. So I said yes. I really do like the person who invited me, and want to celebrate her first year in business, so decided I would go along and pretend that it is really a celebrate the success party, rather than a Christmas party.

I would love to come up with some other name for those things we call a Christmas party. The end of the year is a nice time to get lots of people together to say thanks, to catch up on all their news and get excited about our big plans for the new year.

I object, however, to all this being labelled under the banner of Christmas, and calling it an End of Year Celebration is cumbersome. I shall work on another title, and get back to you.

In the meantime, your suggestions are welcome. What can we re-name the Christmas party?

Are you facing another Christmas like the last one? Does this idea fill you with despair? Don’t blame you, the so called festive season sucks so badly for so many people.

It is amazing to hear people complain about doing the Santa Season every year. I think it’s because it’s all they know to do, and it’s what everyone else is doing. It all seems so normal if everyone is suffering too.

Time has come to make some changes, to swap out that painful normal for a new shiny way of doing Christmas.

By applying the opposite statement to the usual Christmas complaints, let’s see what we can do to change it.

I have plenty of cash for Christmas.

Please note this line said CASH. Don’t use credit for Christmas.

This will take some planning. In January, put $20 every week away into a bank account. Don’t touch it till December. Come December 1 make up the list of people you want to give a gift to, and spend an equal amount on each of them.

For example: On December 1 you have $1,040 in your bank account and a list of 10 people. Spend $104 on each of them – and no more.

Or, pay off that $1,040 off your outstanding credit card debt from last Christmas and give each of those 10 people on your list a big hug instead.

I just love being with the in-laws at Christmas time.

Yes, you love being with them, but what a shame you are all booked out! The solution to this one is to decide to volunteer your Christmas day to be working at a homeless shelter, dog’s home, nursing home or soup-kitchen. No one in your family will ever have a go at you about this. This will impress the in-laws no end, and they will look more kindly on you.

I’m really looking forward to getting fatter this Christmas.

The time to start this project is in July. Go on a strict diet, get yourself to the gym and really work harder than you ever have before to shed 10kg. Then when Christmas comes along, with all the festive drinks and eats, you can happily take part knowing that you are in good shape to start with.

I don’t care that the kids have bought me a vacuum cleaner for Christmas.

Another plan-in-advance project. Teach your loved ones to be sure to keep the receipts of all purchases, purely for insurance reasons. Then after they have given you that vacuum cleaner, take it back to the store with the receipt, get a refund and spend the money on something you really want. As the kids probably never use a vacuum they’ll never notice that you’ve exchanged it for a lovely set of diamond earrings.

It is normal and human to feel disappointed in the gifts received. Everyone has set gift expectations and normally those expectations go unmet. The only way to avoid this is to have household rules about gifts, and being sure to have a gift list with a range of prices on the fridge door. Everyone can see it and there will no longer be any of those scenes where you pretend to be thrilled about something that sucks.

It may not be nice or fair to set expectations of what we think others should give us, but it is human and normal.

I really love having the tree and lights up well into March.

Get used to the festive season being around for 3 months more if you’re not prepared to take the decorations down before New Year’s Eve.

I’m happy to organise the Christmas party

Make sure that you say this line with great enthusiasm, and then gaily announce that the party will be a BYO picnic. All you will have to do is find a spot and tell the others. Everyone understands that BYO picnics mean exactly that – they will all bring their own food, drinks and chairs. You don’t have to do any food preparations, apart from what you want to eat. You don’t have to clean the house or fix the garden or anything.

If you felt inspired, you could take along a cricket bat and ball for a quick game after lunch, but really, that’s not essential.

Best of all, you can go home when you’ve had enough, and leave them all to clean up their own mess. Perfect!

We are being increasingly exhorted to stop buying stuff (and I am one of those who says this too.) My concern is that the standard solution is for us to leanr how to be happy with less.

Why is being happy with less better than shopping? Is it possible to replace the buzz of shopping, that joy of instant gratification, just with the higher moral ground and superior feeling of not having bought anything?

I don't think this is a good argument, it's not working on me and I'm in the thick of it. Just telling people this happiness line plain won't work. Here is sample from a randomly trawled site on anti-consumerism:

By learning to be happy with less, you just may find that so many possessions were merely complicating your life. You may find that few—but more special or unique—things trump multitudes of mediocre or common things. True, some material objects do make our lives easier, but they cannot bring us happiness, which must be found within.

For me, this holds no compelling reason to not go out shopping this weekend. Who says material objects don't make us happy? Do we even know what happy is? And what about all this happy-clappy happiness from within deal? What is that all about?

Sadly, a great opportunity is being watered down by people trotting out platitudes, one-liners and pithy sayings that they can't explain and I believe they don't fully understand. The funny thing is, I am a long term anti-consumer and I am sure that my inner happiness did not suddenly blossom over night.

There must be something to replace this buying of stuff, and it must be tangible. As with people who quit smoking, it helps them to have something else to do with their hands and mouth, so many take to chewing gum and knitting.

What can I tell people to do instead of shopping? Just urging them to seek inner happiness instead won't work. What is the anti-consumer equivalent of the gum and knitting? 

It's my birthday and my lovely hubby has written me a wonderful Say No To Santa poem

Say No To Santa

Twas two months before Christmas

And all round the mall

With the changing of colour

Like leaves in the fall

The presence of tinsel

Marked that time of year

When the big man in red

would soon be here

‘God damn it’ – it surely can’t already be November

I’ve only just finished repaying last December

I set a tight budget with a moderate set cost

So where all the bills came from I’m still at a loss

Along with the wholesome family traditions of the season comes the negative traditions we've come to know and expect...worry, busyness, stress and anxiety. Some of these traditions we've inherited from the examples of our parents. Some we've conjured up anew and all on our own. Wouldn't attempting to shed some of these negative holiday traditions this year be the best gift to give both to yourself and those around you?