The first of my two "mystery" competition wins has arrived today and can therefore be added to my list of Competition Wins of 2009.

It is a pair of Salomon XT Wings running shoes, courtesy of the SAAB in motion website. They look absolutely fantastic and they will certainly get used as I will be starting running again soon now my gym membership has ended.

A quick search online shows them to be worth between seventy and eighty pounds. A nice win and the type of thing I could never justify buying in "real life". I would have to look for a second hand pair of running shoes on Ebay if I were paying for them myself.

Just in time for Christmas too. I might wrap them up for myself as we are having a VERY low-key Christmas this year. Than and I aren't really buying for each other and will probably only buy a couple of little bits for our son. He's still a bit too young to really understand what's going on at Christmas.

A lot of people I talk to at the moment are doing the same. For many people Christmas has lost it's magic. It's just become far too commercial and starts far too early.

As a reaction to this more and more people I meet seem to have an anti-Christmas feeling. I know I would rather be on the beach in Thailand supping a bear on Christmas day. Maybe when our son is older we will feel differently. But for this year we aren't getting involved.

Anyway if I don't post again before Christmas have a good one, whatever you are doing, and here's hoping 2010 will be a LOT better than 2009, which has been a pretty miserable year chez nous. All the best.