As the vast majority of the readers of this blog are skeptics I have a question for you all. What do you do if a well meaning relative, who honestly doesn’t know any better and who is very excited about it, gives you woo for Christmas? There you are, Christmas day, sitting with your family. You are handed a lovingly wrapped present by an exuberant relative who smiles at you with excitement and proclaims that “when I saw this I immediately thought of you, I just know you will love it.” Full of anticipation you tear off the wrapping paper to find ear candles/homeopathic remedies/a magnetic healing bracelet/a book by Deepak Chopra. What do you do?

Now of course your immediate reaction is to lie through your teeth. You love it, it is just what you were looking for, you have always wanted one. Anything but tell your loved one that, not only have they got you something that you don’t like, they have been taken in by a steaming pile of horse hockey. You can only hope it didn’t cost them too much money.

But of course the problem doesn’t end there. Once you have convinced them that you do actually like your vouchers of a free Reiki session what do you do then? Do you just throw it out or try and pass it off to someone else? But what happens when your relative turns up and asks how you are getting on with it? Maybe they have got you something that they expect you to display in some way, what then? Do you hang the unicorn power mural on the wall to show your relative that your do in fact like it? Or do you make up some excuse as to why you can’t do so?

Or are you all just completely honest and just tell them the truth from the start? I’d be interested in your thoughts, not that I got a present like this, no sir.