It was once all about lifestyle - now it's about survival

WHAT A relief to be back in the office and out of the house where Christmas continues as long as there is a scatter of Roses soft centres left in the tin, writes Orna Mulcahy

Yes, the orange cream ones are horrible, but if you're really desperate you can bite off the top, and wash them out with running water to get the chocolate fix. We've even resorted to eating the stollen that arrives every year from a German business contact. On the first day of Christmas it looked pretty unappetising but on the eighth day it's got potential, toasted with a bit of brandy butter on top.

We savoured the goodies this year because there weren't quite so many of them. Offerings were a little meagre, as were mine in return. The excesses of previous years - bulging hampers filled with leaden fruit cake, cheesy things and mulled wine spices - are now just a memory.

Other things that evaporated this holiday season? Big corporate outings to the panto, people hiring personal drivers to get them from party to party, reckless tipping and reckless opening of bottles of champagne. Too precious to be popped, bottles of bubbly did the rounds this Christmas, passed on from friend to friend with a discreet changing of gift tags. Then again, it is not just champagne that is being recycled and returned. I've already exchanged my most extravagant present, a pair of dangly crystal earrings, for a blanket and a hot water bottle, and I did it in a hurry in case the shop closed down and what use a credit note then?

Bit by indulgent bit, life is changing. I was about to say "lifestyle" but that has become a dirty word that's beyond passé, out there with leather footstools and fake Murano glass mirrors.

It's not about lifestyle now, it's about survival. Venturing into 2009 we could do with tips from Bear Grylls rather than Rachel Allen. How to switch off the under-floor heating and keep warm; cut the gym subscription and learn to walk briskly; cook housewife's cut rather than sirloin or simply make soup, though that's harder than you think since, thanks to health and safety regulations, it's easier to buy a gram of cocaine these days than a chicken carcass.

If the economists are to be believed, by next Christmas things will be so bad we'll be giving each other cunningly wrapped turnips instead of anything from Jo Malone. Save that paper and ribbon! Hold on to the box. Throw nothing away. It might come in handy and anyway, now it turns out there is no away. Our waste paper and plastic is piling up in warehouses in Ballymount because of the drop-off in global demand. In other words, the Chinese are not buying and so all that recycled material could end up in a hole in the ground. That's another step backwards for us.

Speaking of holes in the ground, here's one you might not know about: a friend who has a food shop was rattled when a consignment of honey she'd ordered from the US for Christmas was held up at Customs because of an irregularity in the labelling. There was no working around it. Rules is rules and the honey was confiscated and carted off for what's known as "deep burial" at a designated site in Lusk. This is honey, now, the stuff that survived in the tombs of the pharaohs and the pantries of Pompeii, but if it's not labelled properly it's not fit for the Irish.

Stories like that are somehow more depressing than tales of greedy bankers and inept politicians. What if Ireland truly has had its 15 minutes of fame and it's now downhill all the way to obscurity and menial jobs for our children? It seems laughable that just a few years ago parents were in a lather over how Sean or Katy were going to afford homes of their own in acceptable postal districts. They'll all be living in Mullingar was the big scare. Now the worry is will they have jobs? How will they cope with having to go to, say, Manila, to take up nannying positions, or to Beijing to man elevators? Somehow I don't think the solution is a week's holiday in Lanzarote to prepare them for the spring term or another designer hoodie from BT2.

Worried parent that I am, one corporate Christmas gift impressed me over all others this year. It's a family ticket to the Young Scientist Exhibition next week. We're all going and there'll be no stopping at Funderland. No, we'll head straight for the RDS to join a lot of other parents keen to find out what schools are producing the brightest ideas and what ideas the next generation have to get us out of the hole we're in.