I’ve always felt a little uneasy making a Christmas list. Even as a young kid, I felt I was being very presumptuous in sending my letter to Santa. But then of course, I was also aware of the expression,’if you don’t ask, you don’t get,’ and I wasn’t prepared to take the chance.

So there I’d be, around this time each year, three weeks before Christmas Day, fervently preparing a ‘wish list’ which I’d then post ‘up the lum’ to Santa Claus. It never once occurred to me just how a piece of paper, released over an open fire and powered by something Dad called ‘convection,’ would rise up the length of our chimney, disappear into the darkness of night … and somehow find it’s way to Santa’s grotto in Lapland.

Magic – that’s all I needed to know.

Neither did I question why my parents were so insistent that I settled on my choices so far in advance. Surely it was not beyond the capabilities of Santa’s Little Helpers to effect a change of order?

Patently it was, as I found out the year I saw the new tangerine coloured Dundee United football strip featured in Shoot! magazine, and decided I’d rather have that than the black and white Dunfermline Athletic outfit I’d advised to Santa.

I have to say, I was not a United fan. Nor was I an Athletic fan – I just liked both their strips, neither of which would have been readily available in Glasgow. My parents must have been cursing my choice. Why couldn’t I have asked for a Rangers shirt instead? This was 1969, remember. Amazon was still just a river in South America, some of it probably yet to be fully explored. A change of heart was a bit more involved than printing off a Returns slip and dropping the re-packaged, unwanted item in a locker at the local supermarket.

Come Christmas afternoon, not only was I the only kid in the street playing football in either a Dundee United or Dunfermline Athletic strip – I was the only one playing in a mix-and-unmatch combo of tangerine shirt, black shorts and white socks.

Dundee Athletic? Dunfermline United? What league do they play in?

Yeah – I got it all.

So this year, as every year for the past fifty-three, I’ve given a great deal of careful thought to the list of ideas I’ve been encouraged to provide for my wife and two sons.

I’ve made the list. I’ve checked it twice. No going back now!

And you know what … other than perhaps a Vulcan Bomber Airfix kit, there’s a striking resemblance to those lists of fifty-odd years ago.

Who says us blokes never grow up? 😉

1970s	2023
Beano Annual.	Beano Annual.
Scottish Football Yearbook.	It’s a Team Game – Scottish Football Club Line-Ups in the Black & White Era.
Football strip.	Retro Stockport County shirt.
The latest Sweet / Slade / T Rex record.	‘Can The Glam’ CD Box Set.
Subbuteo team / ‘pitch accessory.’	Get It On – How the ’70s Rocked Football.
Vulcan Bomber Airfix Kit