"ARE you all done for Christmas?" said the friendly assistant at Sainsbury's.

I had only popped out in my lunch hour to buy a few necessities and, while yes, I did find myself straying, buying a tin of chocs and a rather lovely Christmas pud 'laced with Cognac', I've not really started my Christmas shopping yet.

I'm obviously rather behind. I've yet to buy a Christmas card.

But I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Although I'm past the stage where I need to get up at the crack of dawn, to stand in a long queue and part with vast sums of my hard-earned cash to buy He-Mans, Turtles or whatever other craze happens to be in vogue this year - it doesn't get any easier.

Now I have men instead of boys (sons you understand) they like cash!

Nothing short of emptying my bank account of my December salary would probably be sufficient.

No seriously, most of my family haven't got a clue what they want - ask them and they'll shrug and say: "I'll have a think."

My husband - a fan of all gadgets - already owns most of them - at least the ones in my price range.

My mother-in-law likes personal items, but has a vast wardrobe of lovely clothes, a huge collection of jewellery and more perfumes and body lotions than Boots.

And not only do I not know what to buy my brother-in-law - a fairly new addition to my family - but I've also no idea what I'm going to feed him on Christmas Day.

He's a vegetarian and doesn't eat 'anything that's ever lived'. So that's fish out.

It's not that I have anything against vegetarians - it's just in our house of shameless carnivores - Christmas is a massive meat feast.

Turkey, sausage and bacon rolls, forcemeat stuffing balls, pork and cranberry stuffing - you name it, it's got meat in it!

Apart from, of course, brussel sprouts - an essential Christmas staple even though no-one really likes them, carrots and potatoes. So he's not going to be able to share much of our tucker.

But hey, there's still 27 days left, who's panicking!