Who says Christmas shopping has to be a horrible, stress filled nightmare? Lots and lots of people, is the answer to that question. How awful trawling through aisle after garish aisle of tinsel strewn tat, trying to remember what particular shade of purple your grandmother can bear to wear, which obscure author your most pretentious relative is raving about at the moment.

Once New Year arrives, then, nothing short of a miracle will coax your average sentient human being over the threshold of any retail establishment.

Occasionally, however, a magical shopfront emerges from the biting winter cold, a treasure trove to rival Mister Benn’s Special Costume Shop, or the finest confectioners your childhood memories can muster (mine is the Stars newsagent in Parton Road, Aylesbury).

Duttons for Buttons in Harrogate is a case in point. No prizes for guessing what’s for sale here- thousands upon thousands of buttons of every shape, colour and size, made from plastic, wood, porcelain, shell, glass, leather and no doubt many other materials. This place does exactly what it says on the tin.

You may not think you need buttons, but once you see the enormous selection of tiny, beautiful discs, stored away in neat little boxes and glistening like jewels from every corner, you’ll change your mind. Even if they’ll be stored away in a tiny tin on a shelf somewhere, to be taken out and examined at a later date, they’re still worth the investment.

Once you’re all buttoned out, leave the shop and turn right down the hill toward The Ginnel, and you’ll soon find vintage paradise Space Harrogate. Prepare yourself for another Mister Benn experience- this place will take you back a few years, to a time before objects had the corners knocked off. Every few feet of the floorspace is stocked by a different proprietor, so you can lay your hands on anything from working jukeboxes to empire line wedding dresses, hand crocheted berets or original copies of The Bionic Woman.