Bleak Christmas for the UK

And I thought it was just miserable in UK at Christmas cause it was too cold to go to the beach and have a traditional Christmas meal of prawns, salad and grains of sand.

By AlJazeeraEnglish on Dec 17, 2011

The season of good cheer and gift giving is a hard sell in Europe this year as the latest figures reveal: people simply cannot afford to dig deep into their pockets under the burden of austerity cuts and increased taxes.

Christmas for many is all about giving to those you love, and so not having enough money to do that is painful.

And it is a painful reminder of ordinary Europeans who are paying for governments and banks' financial mismanagement.