HOLLY WAINWRIGHT: 'Christmas wishlists are out of control.'

Dear Santa — make it stop.

I mean. You must be sick of it, too.

Once upon a time, your mailbox was full of cute home-made cards, pieces of colourful paper scrawled with kiddie-crayon, wafted up northern-hemisphere chimneys atop of winter-warming flames. Envelopes slipped into letter-boxes with SANTA, NORTH POLE printed neatly on their faces.

Now, Christmas present wishlists are all PowerPoint. Google Slides. Showcasing Canva skills.

The tweens and teens have gone corporate, and I am not here for it. I can't imagine you are, either.

Watch: One mum from TikTok shares a video of her daughter presenting her 'Christmas Wishlist'. Post continues after video.

Actually, f**k that, let's get real. You ARE me. I have been Santa and Mother Christmas, and several, shabby, teleporting elves for almost 15 years now. And I don't appreciate that the magic of Christmas is now indistinguishable from that management meeting I tried to get out of for a full 10 years.

I know I'm not the only one receiving an email to my work address, subject-line XMAS PLZ.

I know I was not the singular parent who marvelled at the sheer number of slides in the presentation, each with a request ranging from the reasonable to the ridiculous, studded with helpful prompts - a hyperlink here, an "only available in store" there. A declaration that "I know you can't buy them all, I've put a star next to the ones I really, really want" — only to find that every page, from the $20 sunset lamp to the $150 trainers are studded with stars.

What happened? What happened to the quaint notion that presents were nice to get at Christmas, that whoever was buying them — from Santa, to Grandma, to Dad — would weigh up what they could afford and how well they knew you and just… choose something? What happened to being hissed at to "smile and say thank you" no matter what was under Auntie Roo's wrapping paper?

When did it become a thing that multiple gifts that are exactly the "right" thing — the right brand, the right wash, the right 'colourway' — were directly requested — in writing, with imagery — in an easily-shared format designed for the office?

Last year, appears to be the answer.

That's when TikTok (you knew it, didn't you?) was suddenly overrun with parents posting videos of their kids actually presenting their Christmas gift slides, like a mid-level sales person requesting a pay rise.

"I've included two sizes of Stanley mug, and two price-points on Nikes…" the girls (it's almost all girls) say, their handiwork beamed on to the family TV, laptops in hand.

The hashtag #christmaslistpresentation is a blur of bikinis and mini-skirts and Pandora bracelets. Charlotte Tilbury setting spray and NARS blush and… *checks notes* lip-oil from luxurious French fashion houses.

Now this year, Canva has customisable templates specifically for this purpose and my daughter's email to me comes with extra "kisses" but deductions for typos.

'Christmas wishlists' templates on Canva. Image: Canva/Supplied.

Her list is typical of the genre. Sunset lamps and over-sized T-shirts and perfume that smells like Glinda. Technology, she knows, is a pipe-dream and much that is sold-out because every other 14-year-old wants it, too.

A sample page from her 'Christmas Wishlists' presentation. Image: Supplied.

And another one. Image: Supplied.

"But it's helpful," say so many. "Cuts down on waste." "Makes sure everyone's happy."

I'm not happy, Santa, that "content creation" has come to my kids' Christmas list, as inevitable as that now seems. Nor that they somehow instinctively know how to get it in BEFORE Black Friday sales. Nor that their expectation of reasonable spending has clearly been influenced by the North West's diamond-encrusted 'skibbidi-toilet' necklace and the relentless "hauls" of underage skin-fluencers.

But, I have to say, the click-through hyperlinks do make this time of a year ever-so-slightly less stressful.

Are you getting a kickback percentage of sales? You wouldn't want to miss that trick. After all, all those lip-oils are ending up in your sack.

Read more from Holly Wainwright:

• HOLLY WAINWRIGHT: Why we all need to write a D**khead List.

• ASK HOLLY: 'My teen spirals when things don't go her way. How do I stop it?'

• HOLLY WAINWRIGHT: 'For me, sobbing in a tent was the first sign.'

Feature image: Instagram @wainwrightholly/TikTok @krystianatiana.