Well I'm afraid I can't change all that but what I can do is help you bring the joy back in to other peoples lives. Follow my advice below, bring some happiness in to the life of a blind person and make your own heart smile inside. Here's how to choose presents for your blind friends that will keep them on a festive high for hours.

Ask the RNLI or other mainstream blindy organisations for this advice and they'll fob you off with nonsense like, "buy nice tactile gifts, a fluffy pullover will make any blind person weep with joy", "fragrances are an excellent present for blind people, after all smell is one of the few pleasures they still have."

What you need is BlindKiss to tell you how it really is. Only by following our "buying for blindies" quick tips can you really show what a true friend you are.

1. Wrapping.
Blind people can't appreciate the pretty pictures on your Christmas wrap so don't waste the time or the money. Besides having a present which isn't Wrapped up will probably really confuse them. If you are a traditionalist and insist on Wrapping then you could just fold over the carrier bag in which you carried said item home from the shops in and apply a bit of sticky tape.If you're both a traditionalist and paranoid about being thought a cheapskate then get some really unusual wrap such as that made of foil or plastic so that the blind person is never one hundred percent sure whether or not it is the wrapping paper they are destroying or if it's part of the present.

2. Packaging.
Obviously blind people can't just rip the paper off their presents, assuming that is that you ignored quick tip one above, look at the picture on the box and toss it to one side and move on to the next parcel. You may spend hours creating intricately shaped packages for your loved ones, hiding small boxes inside big ones, taping over pictures and the like but with blind people there's no need to do any of this. Just go out of your way to buy gifts in impenetrable packaging.

Blind people have to take each present from it's box to find out what it is so the harder it is for them to do this the better. If you can find something in that hard vacuum sealed plastic often used for small electrical goods or children's toys you're doing really well, this takes a sharp pair of scissors and a good ten minutes to defeat.

3. Generic Gifts.
If option two doesn't appeal to you then, alternatively go for a generic container such as something in a fancy bottle or jar. Is it olive oil, bubble bath, alcohol, preserved fruit, full decorative sea-shells or what? There's just know way of knowing without opening up and generally shaking poking sniffing and maybe even tasting the contents. If you chose really well then this process may fundamentally change the nature of the gift. What if it has to be used with in a week of opening, or was purely decorative and the lucky recipient just ruined the whole effect by removing the lid and shaking it up and destroying the patterns within. Similarly you could opt for a picture a mirror or a clock all are equally useless and if you choose carefully can be difficult to tell apart.

4. Multiple Parts.
If your chosen present comes in several parts then your bumbling visionless freak of a friend is going to have to try them in every possible configuration before he or she susses out which order they belong in. If it has a diagram on the packaging which they 1, can't see, and 2, just ripped up so they can't even get anyone else to check it later then this is a top bonus.

Note: A jigsaw is probably taking this to extremes and may jeopardise your friendship although mentioning jigsaws does give me the opportunity to tell the following story:

Last year on boxing day Sara received a distressed phone call from Damon (yes that's right, BlindKiss presenters only have each other for friends). Damon was frustrated, he had been given a super difficult jigsaw by a sighted friend with an over active sense of imagination but was having no luck at all.

"I've got this great jigsaw, a friend tells me there's a big picture of a tigers head on the box and it sounds really good but Its got hundreds of pieces and I just can't work out where to start."

Sara suggested he start by finding the corners and then all the edge pieces and making up the framework before trying to work inwards from there. Sound advice indeed. But the tale doesn't end there. As the clock struck midnight on New Years Eve Damon was back on the phone.

"I'm getting know where with this damn jigsaw, I can't even get two pieces to fit together."

"Bring it with you next time you come to record a show and I'll see if I can help," the ever charitable Ms Morgan volunteered.

So that is exactly what Damon did. On his arrival at the BlindKiss studios for the recording of the January show Damon took out a big box, cleared a space on the desk and let all of the pieces spill out.

Sara Sighed deeply.

"Damon! Put the Frosties back in the box."

Now back to these quick tips of mine.

5. Really Useful.
Finally, is the gift something which the blind person wanted or will be able to make use of? If so they stand a good chance of being able to work out what it is so try as hard as you can to buy something that the individual in question would never in this world buy for themselves and that they have no possible use for.


Some examples of good and bad Christmas presents for blind people:

• Chocolates are an awful choice, although the blind person probably won't know what type they are all chocolates are more or less edible so you've wasted the advantage.

  Note: Obviously Roses, Quality Street and other confectionaries in distinctive boxes are a complete no-no.

• Socks are not an obvious first choice but can be quite good as the blind person won't have a clue what colour they are, or if they have silly novelty phrases or pictures on them so may well embarrass themselves by sporting "I love tubby toast" below the leg of their best suit when trying to impress a girl in a fancy restaurant early in the new year.