Ian McMillan: The three saints who rule this day of errors

I’ve even thought about marketing some greetings cards for this, the most shamefaced of days in the calendar. Just before I wrote this column I was working on a verse for the inside of my St Wrongsize card: Happy St Wrongsize day today! / Hope you kept the receipt! / And how were you to know your wife of thirty years / did not have size nine feet!

Maybe I need to work on the scansion but the rhyming’s zingy.

On St Takemback’s Day, we get the car out or we get on the bus and we take back the gifts that we bought in error, in a fizzy state of mind after the office party or in a moment of deep and brittle fatigue at the end of the long shopping stint that seemed to begin before sunrise and end just after midnight.

You know the kind of gift I mean: the giant cuddly zebra that says I WUV YOU in a high-pitched electronic voice if you press its ear; the tent; the fondue-maker; the voucher for the three-hour balloon ride; the novelty tartan wellingtons; the clothes-prop; the newts-in-a-jar. Whatever possessed you to put those flippers in your basket? Will you ever be able to forget the cocktail of disappointment, incomprehension and hostility on your loved one’s face when they opened the gas-powered tin opener on Christmas morning? Will you ever be able to forget the frosty silence in the room, followed by the phrase that echoes through so many rooms at this time: “It’s OK, I can take it back.”

On St Takemback’s Day, the shops are full of pilgrims paying homage to the saint as they stand stoically in line with their zinc shoelace holders and their hot water bottles in the shape of Adrian Chiles. Pity them, pity them.

St Takemback’s mischievous younger brother is St Wrongsize, and he’s been out and about in the build-up to Christmas, too. You wouldn’t think this still happened in 2011 but we’ve all seen nervous men in malls talking to stick-thin shop assistants and saying “Well, she’s about this tall. Her name’s Doreen” as though the name gives an indication of the size. “She’s about the same size as you” they say although everybody knows that she isn’t and we’ve never even met her. Again, picture the scene on Christmas morning. The paper is ripped from the gift eagerly and with huge anticipation.

The anticipation soon turns to sorrow; it’s like looking from the smiling theatrical mask to the frowning theatrical mask. The shoes are held up to the light as though they are an exhibit at a crime scene. “Are these for a babby?” the recipient says, in a voice as sharp as the heels.

There’s the dressing gown that’s like a marquee that would carry the person wearing it into the stratosphere if the wind was strong enough, and there’s the shirt built for a much smaller man than the one who’s trying it on in the bathroom.

He breathes in, as far as he can go. He stretches the shirt (does it help that it’s bright red? It does not) over his fleshy shoulders. He strains to fasten the buttons but it feels like they won’t hold for long. He waddles back into the room like an over-ripe beef tomato. “Maybe I should have got the bigger size?” his wife says, casually. He doesn’t reply. He can’t breathe. He can just about nod. Perhaps the problem is that we sometimes buy things for our loved ones that are the size we remember them as rather than the size they are, whether that’s bigger or smaller. To defeat St Wrongsize, all you have to do is ask them. But that might be too simple.

Completing our trio of Saints is the most mischievous of all, St Lingerie-Error. I read a piece in a style magazine recently (don’t panic: I found it on the floor of a chip shop) that said men these days are feeling much more confident about buying small wispy things for their nearest and dearest or their dearest and not so nearest if you get my drift.

Well, that may be true in some cases but I bet you’ll see a number of followers of St Lingerie-Error stumbling into the shops today with their hats pulled low and their scarves pulled high.

I was once in a café in Barnsley at this time of year and I overheard the telling phrase ‘I said to him, if you think I’m wearing summat like that to go to bed in you’re one off!’ A number of the men in the café blushed puce. Happy St Takemback and St Wrongsize and St Lingerie-Error’s Day!