There’s still time for a cheap and easy eco Christmas

Someone tell me again why we’re paying for plastic imitations of free, seasonal, abundant greenery, asks Kate Hughes

Cutting back and cutting down – whether for environmental, financial or mental wellbeing reasons – seems to be the order of the day (Rex)

I just want to be absolutely sure...” says the slightly anxious voice on the other end of the phone. I know how this is going to go. It’s my third call like this in the last 10 days. I made one myself last week.

“We’re definitely not doing gifts, right?” I asked my mum for what must have been the fourth time. “None at all. Not ‘no big presents but stocking fillers are still a go’, or any variation on a theme that could leave me red-faced and Scrooge-like with my empty arms. Right?”

It turns out stocking fillers are still on despite the universal request to call time on all Christmas presents for the adults in our extended family, with all but a few trinkets for the seven under-sevens we have spawned between us.