As Christmas approaches, Kendal's shops are heaving full of flustered people, all hunting for That Special Gift. Some go for sparkling jewellery; others will buy, hide and then lose an iPod, or struggle to find a hiding place for a shed-sized hi-fi.

Others, however, will look elsewhere for their special gift - above their heads, in the night sky. Convinced it's the most romantic thing in the world, they will fill out the form and send it, with a cheque, to a company promising to name a star after their loved one.

Sounds great, doesn't it? Imagine taking your wife/girlfriend/husband or boyfriend outside on a frosty night, pointing at one of the stars twinkling up there and whispering in their ear: "That's named after you and it will be forever" Altogether now, "Ahhhhhhh." There is only one thing wrong with that. It's absolute rubbish. And that's the polite word for it.

Yes, it's a lovely idea, but it's nothing less than a scam. For a start, none of these so-called Star Registry' companies has the right to name a star, or anything else up there. No-one in the world can name a star. If you pay - or have already paid - to have a star named, that name will just exist in that company's own register of names, it won't appear on any of the official star charts, catalogues or lists used by astronomers to observe the night sky.

Also, the stars "available for naming" are all so faint you will need either binoculars or a telescope to see them, so forget that romantic walk in Abbot Hall Park to show your fiance "their star"; all the bright stars, the ones obvious to the naked eye, were named centuries or even thousands of years ago.

So, please, if you're considering doing that, don't. Or if you're determined to, send me the £25 and I'll happily name a blade of grass on Castle Hill, or a grain of sand down on Arnside beach after your girl - or boyfriend. It will be just as legitimate.

If you really want to do something romantic for your loved one this Christmas that involves the stars, just take them outside on Christmas Eve and look at the sky with them. Take time together to see how the stars are different colours, different strengths of brightness, and make shapes in the sky, like Orion, the Hunter'. He's easy to find - just look to the east after sunset and you'll see the three blue stars of Orion's Belt' shining above the trees, and just below them Orion's Sword'.

The middle star of the Sword' looks fuzzy to the eye because it's not actually a star but a cloud of gas and dust where stars are being born. Look at it through binoculars and you'll see this nebula is a beautiful fan-shaped cloud of greeny-white light. It looks small to us here on Earth, but that cloud of gas is actually a stellar nursery almost 12,000 times wider than our whole solar system!

And as you look at the nebula with your partner, frozen hand in frozen hand, whisper to them that the light entering their eyes set off on its journey 1,500 years ago possibly on the very night when King Arthur and Guinevere stood on Camelot's battlements and kissed for the first time.

Now there's celestial romance for you