Excuse me while I gag, choke, wretch over my Christmas dinner. 

Not over the dinner itself. But the cost of it.  

Because it’s hard to enjoy a joyous festive feast when you need to mortgage the house to pay for it. A common old, everyday, garden variety, ropey leg of lamb, a Kiwi Christmas rite, was to cost me the thick end of $70. The pain is deep.  

Seasonal fluctuations I am told, global supply and demand. About 90 percent of red meat produced here goes overseas so we pay export prices, which are what the world’s prepared to pay. I didn’t hear any complaints from the land about that. 

Also changes to land use, less livestock, so fewer loin chops. But the world still craves and will pay a premium, so we do. Why is some of that meat simply not held back for the local market at a reasonable, affordable, accessible cost. We would support our farmers if we could afford to do so.

So lamb’s off at Christmas, now pass me the ham. No, ham’s off too! A 7kg champagne leg of ham would cost $259.50. Half a leg would cost more than the lamb, $71.52, and a third of a ham at $53.00 would barely make enough buns for the brood at the beach on Boxing Day. 

We can take comfort -  or can we take comfort? - from the fact they’re now paying more, not more than us though, for a leg of our lamb in Sainsburys. They can cart our stuff halfway round the world and its doesn’t cost any more. That doesn’t compute. So, actually, I can’t take comfort.  

Four or five stuffed chooks is about $100,  so looks like we’re stuck with a luncheon sausage sandwich this Christmas. Splash it with “train smash” – at least make it look festive. 

I Goldsmith, Bureta