Why I'll be Boxing clever and avoiding the sales rush

I LIKE Boxing Day.

I like the whole "are there any of those Belgian chocolates Aunt Rita brought round going begging?", calm-after-the-storm feel about it, the sensation that the worst is over, that there are a clear 364 days left before you have to go through it all again and, most importantly, that no-one's going to make you eat anything else that contains cranberries.

One of my favourite Boxing Days was a few years back, when the family elected to spend the day trooping up a hill in the Perthshire gloaming.

It being both the festive season and my family, however, we also took along some gourmet quiche and a hip flask containing a 25-year-old Macallan, and rolled home through the frosty countryside in a merry post-Christmas haze that strangely belied the freezing temperatures.

So it has always been a source of voyeuristic fascination to me (is there any other type?) as to why so many millions of folk leap out of their beds first thing on a Boxing Day morning, wrap themselves in their woollies, jump into their cars, and head for the sales.

Don't get me wrong – I love a good bargain, but on Boxing Day? The day that should surely be the ultimate day of rest is one of the few days of the year when snapping up a half-price designer dress is not on my mind.

And yet, shopping on Boxing Day is a massively growing trend. In 2006, sales were up 6.9 per cent on Boxing Day from the previous year, and today are expected to increase again.

In 2005, John Lewis opened its first stores on Boxing Day, and many more have followed suit. Indeed, we seem to be even worse in Scotland than our counterparts in the rest of the country – last year, Next opened up here on 26 December, but not until a day later in England and Wales.

And no wonder, given that there were around 1,000 folk queuing up outside its Braehead shopping centre branch before it opened at 7:00am. Honestly, where do they get the stamina from?

What fascinates me more than that, however, is where they get the money from?

OK, so things are cheap, but not so cheap that you can turn up with a few mouldy magic beans you found in last winter's coat pocket and walk out with a new wardrobe's worth of clothes.

But then, of course, it's not magic beans that people are buying all these goodies with, it's credit cards, which are far from magical and about as dangerous for you as standing around in Braehead at 6:00am with said card.

Credit-card debt in Britain is now at a staggering £54 billion. The number of people being declared homeless after defaulting on their mortgage is at a 15-year high.

More than 6,000 Scots went bust in the last three months. As a recently reformed credit-card addict (it was the one New Year's resolution I actually managed to keep) I can tell you it's scary out there.

So if you're heading off to the sales today, then good luck to you.

As for me, I'm off to see if there's any more of those chocolates Auntie Rita brought hanging around.

And possibly a spot of that Macallan too.

TROUBLED FAMILY AFFAIRS SPOIL FLAVOUR OF SPEARS' CHRISTMAS

IF CHRISTMAS Day with the family didn't turn out to be quite the hootenanny you were hoping for, spare a thought for the Spears family, which must have endured one of its most awkward Christmas meals around the dinner table this year for some time.

Not only has daughter No1 Britney topped off a fun-packed year of head-shaving, car-bashing and rehab escaping with the news that she is to have her children tested for drugs, her sister, Jamie Lynn, 16, has just announced that she is pregnant by an older man who may now face up to ten years in prison for statutory rape. The phrase "they grow up so fast" just doesn't seem to cover it.