Would you like to leave a gift under my tree?

It was fun while it lasted, but now it's time for me to pack it up and place my Christmas Tree widget ever-so-gently but firmly in the wheelie-bin.

Thank you to the 17 lovely (genuine) readers who took the time to send me Christmas greetings and to choose such thoughtful gifts (and choose their wrapping paper and ribbon!) and place them under my tree. I do appreciate your kindness.

However.....I must also thank the 12,000 or so others who suddenly, over the course of the last couple of days, deluged me with unusual gifts and sleazy, illiterate messages - managing to completely by-pass my visitor counter by devious means known only to those bent on mischief. (For all the skullduggery you wrought, you might at least have had the generosity to have registered an extra 12,000 visits on my counter!)

While your many declarations of love and offers to marry me or amuse me in ways I would remember forever amused me, I'm afraid I must disappoint you all by declining to take them up.

I realise this is not at all in the spirit of Christmas - but then neither were your "gifts".