Put some presence into your presents and you can't go wrong at Christmas

Not a year has gone by since the year my mother decided I was responsible enough to do my own Christmas shopping, probably when I was about 11, that someone hasn't been delighted by a gift I've left under the tree for them.

The trick has always been to shop throughout the year. If you're buying someone a gift, you should know them well enough to actually know them.

You'll see something that you know will just fit in their house, or appeal to some curiousity of theirs, make them laugh, or cry. Buy it, tuck it away, then gift it at the appropriate time.

I think the whole point of a present is in the thinking. To me, a great gift says I saw this and I thought of you, or even I was thinking of you when I saw this.

without sounding ungrateful, I'm always astounded when I receive gifts that are so off the mark. Like do you really know me at all? Has any thought gone into this? I remember receiving a book once, one of those ones where an AFL WAG or a woman of similar standing, perhaps she was a television presenter, shared all her tips and tricks to being a successful wife and working mother. My kids were in their teens by then, I think I was doing a pretty good job at it all. The gift was from someone who obviously thought I wasn't. It was the last gift he ever gave me.

Maybe I'm hard to buy for. I don't want for much. I don't covet jewels, or wear perfume. I get my hands on the books I want. I have enough cheese knives and platters. I'm not one for day spas or massages. It's not that I'm fussy but we don't need more stuff, we don't. But we all need reminders that people care for us, care for us enough that they've braved the shops, spent some money and thought of you.

We probably don't need that either. But we don't stop enough to let people know we're thinking of them. There's nothing I love more than using something that someone has given me and thinking of them. I don't care if it's something as simple as a tea towel. Thanks friend, this has come in useful again and again. I like giving magazine subscriptions for the same reason. Every month the magazine arrives, you think of me.

I love it when I come across presents the kids gave me when they were little. One item of jewellery I do love is a circular plasticine necklace my daughter made me when she was in daycare. My son too was quite the ceramicist in his early years (what a great craft program that centre had. I still have items he made, from practical bowls to a pair of little doves.)

My favourite tree decorations are ones they made. I have a book end, just one, that my son chose for me at one of those Mother's Day stalls one year. I still use it. I like to imagine that he saw it and thought "Mummy will love this", knowing I was never a perfumed soap kind of mummy.

MORE BY: KAREN HARDY

I've noticed more and more over the years, however, that I've found myself saying, particularly to the kids, "What would you like for Christmas?". They're at a troublesome age. Too old for toys, as such, although we all need something to play with for Christmas, play is something none of us do enough. Which is why my children will receive some Christmas Lego until I die.

They're too young, however, for tea towels and magazine subscriptions. But offering to get the brakes on my son's ute fixed is not a very Christmasy thing, is it? I'll find something in this next week, I'm sure.

In my half dozen years as a single woman, I've become quite adept at shopping for my own Christmas presents. I've bought myself a couple of good novels to read over summer - for me, no summer is complete without Stephen King and either Nelson de Mille or Lee Child. I found a good handbag at the Handmade Markets and bought myself a new sunhat.

It's kind of self indulgent but I don't care. I can wake up by myself on Christmas morning and know I've been thinking about myself, that I've deemed myself worthy enough, a good enough person to acknowledge with some small thing.

I think that's important too. While we're thinking about other people, finding some way to bring them joy, that we treat ourselves to the same kindness.

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