The cost of ChristmasWhy they wish it could be Christmas every dayMatthew Norman: Let's all celebrate Festivus this yearRaj Persaud: Stress, suicide and spending time with the familyJohn Bell: At Christmas we can dream and imagine how the future should beLeading article: Festive cheer
SPENDING
£4.2bn: The amount Britons spent on cosmetics this Christmas
£4.14bn: Britain's aid budget for the developing world in 2004
£813: Average spending per adult on celebrating Christmas (£55 less than last year)
£50: The per capita annual income in Ethiopia
£20m: Amount made by Mark Tilden, British robot expert who invented Robosapien, this year's hit toy
£20m: Amount nations of sub-Saharan Africa are paying in debt to developed world every 16 hours
EATING
7,000: Average calories consumed by Britons on Christmas Day
780: Minutes running needed to burn off 7,000 calories
7: Number of days a child refugee in Darfur could survive on 7,000 calories
£12: Average cost per head in UK of Christmas lunch
£12: Cost of a month's supply of grain for a family in drought-hit Malawi
30,525: Number of miles your Christmas dinner will have travelled to reach your table - vegetables alone are likely to have come 15,800 miles
4: Miles walked daily by families in developing world in search of water
HEALTH
5m: Britons will suffer a stomach upset over festive season
2.1m: People in developing world killed this year by diarrhoeal disease
CRIME
244,000: Homes in Britain likely to be burgled over festive season
75,058: Britons spending Christmas in prison
4.2%: Rise in murder rate over Christmas
ENVIRONMENT
83 sq km: Amount of wrapping paper used (enough to cover 33 Hyde Parks)
3,000,000: Tons of extra rubbish generated - enough to fill 120m wheelie bins
http://news.independent.co.uk/low_res/story.jsp?story=595883&host=3&dir=65
