I bumped into Larry Somerton and his lovely wife at the plaza the other day.

I worked with Larry for many successful years at Channel Seven in Brisbane, where he was the news director and I was the puppet.

They’re currently enjoying the village atmosphere of Cotton Tree. He and I talked for a while, lamenting the current offerings on Australian television, when his wife – obviously a woman of taste – told me she absolutely loved my column.

So much so that I should consider doing more with it and taking it further.

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that Caroline Hutchinson, who did the column before me, has actually done just that and released a book ... Is It Just Me? and was last seen at Buderim signing copies for pensioners.

I think total sales so far have exceeded 50.

The present

I hadn’t gone overboard this year as far as presents for my wife were concerned.

I got her the handbag she’d always wanted to buy but never did from the plaza and a trinket for her Pandora bracelet from the Gift Shop at Coolum.

Well it was more a spacer than a charm. I couldn’t find a charm that could possibly remind her of the year we’d had ... they don’t make a “little girl with matches about to burn down your house” or “tiny little gold surgeon operating on Buddha”.

Just because I carry a little bit of weight and I’ve got a white beard, the job of handing out presents at Christmas always seems to come to me.

So there I was, sat beside the plastic pine tree, calling out names and passing presents. There was a pile of them too. Me being me, I was more concerned about how much the presents had cost than the smiles on the children’s faces.

Kym liked her handbag and gold “spacer”. The children were ripping and tearing at the wrapping paper and yelling with excitement.

I kept giving for some time until there were no presents left under the tree to give.

I sat back empty-handed and looked at my family. It was for a split second “an uncomfortable moment”.

Kym broke the silence with: “Sorry I didn’t get you anything this year Jamie, I mean what do you get the man who has everything?”

Nothing, obviously!

You can’t handle the truth!

It had to happen some time and of course this Christmas it did.

As usual we’d left the wrapping of the kids’ presents until the last minute and so this story unfortunately starts ... It was the night before Christmas ...

In fact, it was 3.30am in the morning and I was taking an armful of gifts down from the wardrobe upstairs to under the Christmas Tree downstairs. Given that we have five children, that’s a lot of presents!

I got halfway down the stairs when Stella whispered a warning in the darkness. “Go back, Jackson’s awake!”

If ever I was going to have another heart attack, that was the moment – not because Jackson was awake, but because in that light and at that time of the morning, Stella bore an uncanny resemblance to Ivan Milat!

But the fact was I was too slow and the jig was up. Jackson stepped into the hallway and said ... “You’re Santa!”

The piercing

Sixteen-year-old Stella came back from the plaza the other day and announced: “Look Dad, I got my belly button pierced!”

Then quickly added: “Mum said it was okay. She had to sign something before the lady would do it.”

Stella lifted her T-shirt to reveal her jewel-encrusted navel and asked: “What do you think?”

I thought of all the things I could’ve said, like: “Jesus Christ! Don’t do your eyebrows!” or “If you come home with your lip pierced, I’ll tear it out!”

But I didn’t and settled for: “That’s nice dear.”

It’s only taken a week for Stella to be sitting on the lounge nervously and gingerly bathing it with salt water and asking: “What do you think Dad? Do you think it’s infected?”