THE blue-an-yellae shopfront o the pawn sits by a Greggs, a bookies an a lang-empty shoppie. The windae is fu o cheap electronic gear: auld teles, Nokias, laptops. Onythin, in a sense, that the average workin class Scot micht hae lyin aboot the hoose an be willin tae punt come a cash crisis.

A customer breenges in, heid doon, hood up. The manager kens him. He brings oot a generic eBook reader. The manager gies the customer a langer look than the device. “Tenner?” he says. The customer, an Eastern European cheil in his 30s, doesnae look chuffed. “I could dae ye £15, an buy-back at £22.50 in Jan?” A nod. Cash in the hand, a quick signature, an the deal’s done.

The Kindle will be wrappit up in cling film and filed in the basement for a few weeks. The cheil that selt it can buy it back fir the agreed price, makkin it essentially a secured personal loan wi interest at 50%. Or else the device will ging up fir sale in the shop itsel, at aroon double whit they peyed fir it.

As we blether, a guid mony mair fowk cam in tae sell or pawn than tae buy. The Christmas squeeze wis haein its effect on Aiberdeen.

Christmas pandemonium can pit the skitters intae even the maist prepared faimly. Ye hae the scran ready, presents fir aabdy, their pairtners an their dugs, ye ken wha’s comin roon whan an whits tae be ready. Yet the frantic adverts in ilka shop windae, radio station, website sidebar screich awa at ye tae be mair ready still, buy mair, spend mair.

Fir Scotland’s ane million fowk bidin in poverty, this consumerist pandemonium can be the maist difficult pairt o the year tae thole. I mind fine the pressure I’d pit on ma mither as a bairn, demandin aa sorts o gifties – fae roller blades tae CD players – an she’d oot an get loans, or else buy gear fae thae Bright House-esque sharks. Twa month later the stoor-coatit skates wad be stuffed unner the stair, CD player gubbed an forgotten, an the faimly wad be in crushin debt. Anither victory fir capital.

Ma first job whan I flittit tae Aiberdeen wis the pawn shop in the run-up tae Christmas. It gied us a hellish view intae the pish quality o life Europe’s ile capital offered tae its citizens. I didnae last lang; the stories an situations o the customers wad gar ye finish yer shift wi yer heid in the hauns, greetin aboot how utterly shite Scotland is.

In the five year syne I workit there, Scotland has seen mair poverty ilka year. This is despite there bein a guid percentage mair Scots in work than ither pairts o the UK. There’s aroon a quarter o a million bairns bidin in poverty noo, wi a guid skelp o them bidin in hames whaur a parent actually works a decent amount o hours. Work isnae workin. It’s these faimlies wha’re likely tae be scunnert, pressured intae spendin owre their means tae tak pairt in the consumerist Christmas dwam.

The pawn is locatit in ane o the scaffiest pairts o the toon: George Street. Auld photies show fowk bustlin aboot a healthy thoroughfare, but noo its aa social hoosin wi the attendant drug abuse, low-level crime an sense o battered neglect. I cam doon tae get a blether wi the staff an see whit had changed, an whit had remained the same, syne I gied up the gig.

The manager is a guid sort. He’s a strikin lookin cheil, wi a biohazard symbol tattooed on his foreheid and an experimental haircut. He never has his vape far fae his mooth, an is aye gien it a guid lang toot, spewin oot plumes o synthetic smoke. He’d managed the Dundee pawn fir years, but requestit tae flit up the road. The drug scene wis owre destructive fir business, he telt me.

“Ye’d hae a batch o bad drugs go through the toon, an ye’d lose a few o yer best customers tae it,” he telt me, blawin oot a fug o bubblegum flavour vape reek. “I lost six o ma best customers, I’d kent them years, so they were pals as well.” So he left an took owre at Aiberdeen, an aaready has seen the difference.

“Dundee is the drug death capital o Europe, Aberdeen isnae. It’s much easier goin here.”

It isnae easy tae credit that his new environs are sae much brawer than the auld. Ootside on George Street ye can aye spot several fowk oot sellin drugs. The local community cooncil pit pressure on the polis tae dae somethin, but nothin is done. Craiters wi the hail checklist o addiction indicators, fae the strauchlin gait tae the clarty hair an peely-wally skin, cut aboot in their dozens. Union Street an the muckle shoppin centres gleam an skinkle wi a thoosan crystal-white Christmas lights, as ile workers an their wives swagger aboot, bags stappit fu wi the latest o aahin. George Street skulks in derkness. It is a bleak indictment o capitalism.

Scotland famously didnae hae Christmas until the 1950s. As the English sang their carols an wolfed doon their turkeys, Scots wad ging aff tae work in the midwinter mirk, haudin aff their celebration till Hogmanay. I wad argue that 70 years isnae near eneuch practice, an we havnae got the hing o Christmas yet. The guid bits – the bonnie lights, trees, gettin thegither wi faimly an pals an gettin time aff work are aa braw. But the hail consumerist jingbang o intense pressure tae buy mair gifts, ae-wear plastic Christmas jumpers, secret Santas an cheap debt needs bunged on the cowp like last year’s Christmas pine.

We’ve mibbie never had whit ye’d caa a “proper” Christmas in Scotland, sae we hae nae roots tae return tae. But aabdy kens that the current style of Christmas cannae last. The current manifestation is makkin life unbearable fir them wha are in need o support. We can dicht aa the mental capitalist excess oot fae the season, an be left wi a bonnie wee Christmas, ane that’s a relief an a solace tae the hardest-up, nae the final nail in the coffin o their finances.

Feel encouraged tae drap a fiver tae Social Bite tae gie hameless fowk a bed an a dinner at www.socialbite.co.uk.