AS I pack the tinsel away for another year, I’ve been reflecting on the hits and misses of the festive season.

For one thing, I’ve acquired too much cardboard. I tried to calculate how many trees have been felled just so Amazon could box up my children’s Christmas presents. What I’ve come up with is an area the size of Greater Manchester.

If only there was something useful I could do with it. Were I 12, I might build myself a den.

As it is, all I can do is tie it all up with string, and write two stinking letters of apology.

The first is to the folk who will eventually come round with a recycling van and dismantle the cardboard city which I’m about to erect outside our front door.

The second would go to our unfortunate next door neighbours.

They blithely thought they could enjoy their retirement in peace. But they hadn’t counted on Amazon.

By Christmas Eve they must have been on first name terms with the delivery man. A pattern swiftly emerged. Every time we went out, he came round. Their door knocker was soon hanging off its hinges from wear and tear.

Once the orders were placed, there really wasn’t much I could do about it. I tried staying in. I left notes. But nothing could halt the rattle of their door knocker.

These poor people have been disturbed from their slumber by items as disparate as a slow cooker, a moving Batman figure, a pair of tartan wellies and that most benevolent of gifts, a Thin Lizzy album.

Not content with having to sign for it, they now have to sit and listen to it through the walls.

An early apology and a bottle of 2009 Rioja were rapidly followed by a torrent of parcels, as our relatives went nuts with their credit cards.

It swiftly got so bad that the neighbours actually signed off their Christmas card to us this year, not with their names, but with the phrase “your own personal post office.”

My other discovery is that we could have dispensed with these parcels altogether. Because regardless of the extensive number of items on his Christmas wish list to Santa, the only thing my five-year-old son actually wanted was a plastic stick that flashes when you press a button.

Picked up as an afterthought at the Oxford Playhouse panto, the stick ruled the day. Pricey action figures lay ignored in a far corner as the pair of them charged up and down the stairs.

My only conclusion is that when it comes to planning a summer holiday I should avoid saving for a break at Butlins this year. All my dear son actually wants is an empty field, and a flashing stick.

I won’t even bother putting the tent up. He’ll have the time of his life.