I’M STAYING out of York city centre at weekends until next year.

I’ve had enough of trying to make my way inch by inch through the hordes of shoppers filling the streets from wall to wall.

From now until January, I’m doing my shopping on weekdays, when it is still possible, just, to walk instead of shuffle down Coney Street.

As for the out-of-town shopping centres, they’re even worse and you have to join a queue of snails, formerly known as cars, just to get to them.

The Christmas shopping frenzy is upon us again.

That’s a misnomer. The one thing the annual frenzy is not about is Christmas. Go into any of the chain stores or big names and I guarantee you won’t find one mention of shepherds, cradles, saviour of the world, etc.

What you will find is much about the festive season, snowflakes, Santa Claus, decorations and how the only possible way to show that you care for someone is to spend as much money as you can in whichever store you are in.

As for the charity Christmas cards sold by some retailers, I’d love to know just how much of the price goes to the charity named on the card, and how much stays with the retailer in the form of “administrative costs” and the like.

Personally, I only buy Christmas cards direct from charities, or the temporary charity card shop at St Martin-le-Grand.

The “Christmas” shopping season is all about the retailers tugging at our heartstrings to open our purses and boost their profits.

In general, a quarter of all consumer spending comes in the five or six weeks leading up to Christmas.

That’s a huge imbalance in the retail calendar. What’s more, coming as Christmas does at the end of the year and less than four months before the end of the financial year, it gives retailers very little time to redress matters, if they don’t hit their Christmas targets.

When you factor in shops who have had a poor year so far trying to improve their figures and the shortage of money in everyone’s pocket in the months immediately after Christmas, there is even more pressure on the shops to get us to spend, spend, spend before Christmas Day.

So year by year, the retail trade finds more ways to whip up the “Christmas” frenzy by trying to persuade us that the only way to make those we love happy is by getting them ever more or more expensive presents.

Black Friday and Cyber Monday last weekend were two examples of how we are being hustled into making profits for the retail trade.

Suppose we refuse en masse to take part in the annual stressful ritual and force the shops to spread the shopping crowds out over the entire year?

There are other ways of showing how much you care for someone.

You could make something. Rushing into a shop, buying the first thing that might fit the bill and rushing out isn’t caring, it’s conforming to a social norm.

But if you make something, then the person you give it to knows you have spent time and effort into making the gift, and thought about it. You are giving them hours, possibly days of love, and the gift will be unique.

Not everyone is creative or can make things. So how about tickets to go together to a concert or a sporting event or a tourist attraction or a voucher to treat themselves at a spa.

Or consider a meal at a restaurant, which doesn’t have to be amid pre-Christmas crowds but in the peace and quiet of the rest of the winter when you have time over a drink and a good meal to really show them how much you care.

Whatever it is you will be doing it out of love and affection and not because you feel you have to or because everyone else is.

And you’ll be in a better mood to enjoy being with those you love on Christmas Day because you won’t be frazzled and stressed out from trying to walk through the December crowds on Coney Street.