PERHAPS Jibber liked Christmas a long, long time ago - before he saw some kind of light.

But as soon as the first tinsel started to appear in the shops and the decorations went up around the city he'd become increasingly disgusted and never ceased to whinge about it.

So, from late November to early January, he'd give us the run-down on the horror of living in a culture that indulged in such an orgy of consumerism.

He wasn't too concerned about Christ's birthday. Jibber was not exactly a fan of any religion other than a steady devotion to cask shiraz, but he was a sensible enough bloke in his own erratic way and detested commercialism in general and the frenzy of waste in December in particular. He would snarl at the ads on the TV and complain to bewildered shop-assistants about "that bloody Santa racket".

He'd go on about the red-suited Father Christmas actually being a marketing invention of a certain cola-drink company, which I discovered to be true, and he went so far as to be a nuisance at a carols-by-candlelight.

Somewhat of a rotund and bearded figure himself, he must have seemed a weird version of Santa slurring his sarcasms at the bewildered singers as he waved an inflated wine-bladder in his grubby hand from the shadows of his favourite park tree.

But Jibber's disdain for the festive season took a new turn when the trend for lighting up houses took hold and one directly across the street from his geriatric weatherboard cottage got right into it with about five thousand flashing lights and stars and angels and a herd of reindeer pulsating in red and green on the dead grass.

Then came the cherry on top as its sheer volume of light-bulbs got it noticed and included in the retinue of places to be driven slowly by in the warm December nights by a parade of gawking sight-seers.

What happened next seemed a bit contrary to Jibber's general philosophy but the effect was what he was after.

Jibber actually purchased enough strings of the hated fairy lights to erect his very own display, crudely but legibly, on the shabby trellis of his veranda, and sat himself down with a mug of his favourite plonk to enjoy the confusion and abuse of the tourists as his giant dollar-sign flashed merrily and accusingly at the passing throng.