“Wow!” I said to the postman on Saturday as he handed over a large cardboard box, “is someone treating me to a Christmas hamper?”

I was excited as I carried it in, but my spirits fell as I opened it to find acres of brown paper and assorted packaging materials. I was beginning to think it was a joke, when I came across a small trinket I had ordered from a catalogue as a gift for my sister.

It could have fitted into a tiny padded envelope, yet here it was, encased in sufficient wrap to swaddle an Egyptian mummy.

This is not the only example of outrageously unnecessary packaging I have come across in the run-up to Christmas. I had a calendar delivered in a box that could have accommodated a microwave oven, and a child’s toy arrived buried in enough bubble wrap to fill a bath.

Did I imagine it, or are we supposed to be cutting down on packaging? I appreciate that goods have to arrive in one piece, but this is ridiculous. When I was young, my mum regularly ordered gifts from a catalogue, yet never did they arrive with so much packaging.

It has become so farcical, I honestly wouldn’t be surprised should the festive key ring I’ve ordered arrive at my home in a shipping container.

If anything, there’s more packaging than ever, including that hard, clear plastic that you need a chain saw to access. My daughter recently asked me to help her open a sealed unit containing a clothes brush. It was so strong I’m surprised Sellafield doesn’t use it for spent plutonium. I had to resort to scissors. And, as with much of the packaging we discard, it is not on the list of items that can be recycled locally, so it goes straight to landfill.

You’d think by now we would be changing our habits, but despite all the hot air and environmental pledges, we seem to be using even more boxes and containers than we have in the past.

And we continue to use zillions of plastic carriers – some shops even issue giant ones for small items, presumably so that shoppers advertise their product as they walk around town. And bags for ‘life’ are a joke, because the minute they become tatty shoppers get another. It is possible to use a bag for life – but not a plastic one.

Why can’t all fashion stores emulate Primark with its hugely eco-friendly, yet amazingly robust, brown paper bags?

Still, every cloud has a silver lining: our kittens are having a whale of a time. They’re having a great Christmas, playing in the boxes and among the acres of brown paper strewn across the living room and along the hall.