Sir, – I hope mine wasn't the only nose to wrinkle at your regurgitation of Retail Ireland's numbers ("Households to spend average of €2,700 on Christmas shopping", News, December 3rd).
According to Retail Ireland, Irish households will splash an average €2,700 on Christmas this year. Disturbing, I thought, with a twinge of guilt that my own, much lower figure might mean I wasn’t fully engaging with the season.
Reading on, I learned that December spending is a full €866 higher than that for any other month.
Hold the Swarowski-studded iPhone. Doesn’t that suggest Irish households are in fact spending €866 on Christmas, and that the balance is what might more prosaically be labelled “December spending”, with December bringing, like the other 11 months, its own, non-festive share of bills, outgoings, costs, etc?
I’m no statistician, but to me this has the whiff of a turkey carcass. Perhaps you could spare a couple of column inches to explain the difference between Christmas and December – if there is one – while reassuring me that I’m not grinching on the season and that you are not recycling press releases from interested Christmas parties. – Yours, etc,
CONOR O’HAGAN,
Dublin 8.