What do you buy your child for Christmas when he wants a life-size moon rocket?

Shame has descended on the Young household this Christmas. When my wife picked up our four-year-old from school last week she was intercepted by his teacher who wanted a quiet word. ‘Oh no,’ she thought. ‘What’s Ludo done now?’ In fact, it was more a case of what I’d done — or failed to do. The teacher explained that she’d asked the children to write letters to Santa, saying what they wanted for Christmas. At the top of his list Ludo had written: ‘Lite bulb’. When the teacher asked him why he’d chosen such an unusual present he told her that the bulb in his bedroom had stopped working months ago and his deadbeat dad still hadn’t replaced it. Ludo’s hope was that if Santa brought him a light bulb for Christmas, his daddy might finally pull his finger out.

One of the reasons I’m so embarrassed by this story is that, for weeks now, I’ve been complaining about how greedy my kids are when it comes to Christmas presents.