‘Father Christmas doesn’t bring electricals, pets, or age-inappropriate gifts’.

It’s a mantra my children have been able to repeat over the years almost as well as they can recall a nursery rhyme.

Harsh maybe? But fair.

And while it morphed years ago from requests for a puppy, a games console (when there was nothing wrong with the one they had) and a phone at age seven - when one casually chimed ‘well if you don’t think I need it, I’ll just ask Santa’ - it’s a guide that serves us well.

We implore Santa not to bring ‘big’ presents to our house for many reasons.

For children living in homes struggling to make ends meet I wonder if the festive season must feel nothing but incredibly cruel.

If you’ve seen the Good as Gold charity advert for Shelter this year you’ll know exactly what I’m getting at.

The commercial follows Maddie, living in very difficult circumstances, who overhears a shop worker tell another child ‘be as good as gold and you’ll get just what you want’.

Fast forward two minutes and safe to say by the end of the advert – despite being an angel in the build up to Christmas – Maddie still wakes on Christmas morning without a place to call home and nothing under the tree. In fact, there’s no tree at all.

Just this month, my youngest rolled in from school and declared a classmate’s elf was sending them to Disneyland Paris because they'd been ‘reeeeeally good’ before Christmas. Brilliant.

Now I’m all for an Elf on the Shelf gift of elf-sized proportions…chocolate coins, a visit to the Christmas lights, panto ticket at a push?

But if these pint-sized pixies are dishing out big-ticket trips during December my daughter will soon start going to bed with her suitcase packed firmly believing Blue McSprinkles (don’t judge us) is sending her on holiday in the morning.

Because children compare notes.

One year, their teachers went around the class in January and let pupils say what Father Christmas had brought. The question was absolutely innocent enough but the responses were wild. Wildly different that is. Some had televisions – others pyjamas.

Now my kids would definitely have been in Camp Pyjama, but they know the deal. Santa won’t ever leave a 28” flatscreen in their stocking.

We might though. Or grandparents. Perhaps even a collective if the request is pricey.

Because in the same way that kids mostly accept that some go to Spain on holiday and others have no summer break at all, festive family budgets are relative. And I think that’s far easier to explain when comparing why one child got socks, and Jack down the road an XBox despite being equally well behaved.

I know of families where Father Christmas is asked to leave just one small present from the wish list and family take care of the rest. It won’t be the most expensive gift but it’ll be something they would like.

I also have a friend who helps Santa buy her children's presents before they’re sent to the North Pole for the elves to wrap and reindeer to deliver on Christmas Eve, in an effort to teach them the value of things. Rather like the ‘Something you want, something you need, something to wear, something to read’ four-present rule that went viral a few years ago that was also designed to place some gentle constraints on outlandish requests.

And of course, when I finally relent and let them have the extortionate new games console, a phone, maybe even one day the puppy.

With no disrespect to the main man in red – there isn’t anyone taking the credit for that apart from me.