I had to do it. What choice was there? If I didn’t buy my adopted nephews and nieces presents they’d never talk to/try to talk to/gurgle at/dribble on me again. So I hit the shops.

An Irish rugby jersey for Oisín. By the time the season kicks off he’ll fit into it. And a tee that says “Am I cute or what?”. An Irish language pictionary for his big brother - with a Gaeilge-phobic dad that’ll cause a stir. Oh, and of course the obligatory Robert the Construction Operative socks - complete with spanner shaped rubber grips on the soles. A book of Roald Dahl poems for another ‘nephew’. A really girlie pinky flowery thingy for making your own party invitations for his sister - her birthday’s in January. And so on until each would have something to wear or read and something to play with. Sort of Kinder Surprise without the chocolate and poorly dubbed voices.

The whole operation only took an hour and a half and that was in three different shopping centres. Not bad going. The only shop I had to queue for service was Eason, which says something about our nation’s love of reading. But what does it say about the economy?

I don’t know. I’m no economist. But I do know that 1½ hours is the quickest I’ve ever done the prezzie-run. Is it that there are so many shopping centres now that the buyers are spread out among them? Or are consumers cutting back this year? Are they short of money or just sick of buying crap non-stop the whole year long?

The ESRI would know, so I had a look at their website. Big mistake! Christmas is depressing enough without reading ESRI reports. “Growth to slow in 2008″. “Unemployment to rise”. And damn difficult to understand too: “Factory gates” and “gross national product”. Well if the products are that gross then I suppose the factory would have to be behind big gates.

Then I noticed something I would understand - the Consumer Sentiment report. Wrong again! It’s all figures. “The forward-looking sub-index weakened to 49.2 in November, from 58.4 in October”. What the hell is that about? I checked the archives and still more figures. If I was writing these I’d tell it like it is: “Mid February showed consumer sentiment to be soppy”. “In the heat of July consumers were horny”. “At Hallow’een consumers were scared”.

A jeweller I met tells me she’s having the slowest Christmas ever. Yesterday should have been mad busy in my local with most people finishing work for the holidays, but the manager had to send one of the staff home. My builder had a team of 16 working on 4 sites last June. As of yesterday he has just 4 and he’s trying to find things for them to do on the single site remaining.

I think the real test will be to ring around on Christmas morning and ask the kids what Santy brought. If the reindeer were tired this year and couldn’t carry much then we’ll know the true state of the economy.