As Kimberley Smethurst opened her Christmas presents last week she, like many others, thought she might have to disguise her disappointment. “After the usual books and perfume, the next present I opened was a model jet fighter plane,” she recalled.

“I didn’t really know what to think, but I certainly wasn’t impressed.”

As she opened her penultimate present — a guidebook to Moscow — her husband Wayne looked on.

“Seeing the guidebook to Moscow I thought perhaps we might be going there on holiday,” she said.

Finally, she opened the last item, a gold envelope. As she read the card inside, she was speechless.

The present her husband had given her was an invitation to fly in a MiG-21 jet fighter at 50,000ft over Siberian Russia — a snip at £3,000.

“I had run out of ideas and started to struggle,” said Wayne, 35, a finance broker from Warrington, Cheshire.

“She’s had the Rolex watch, she’s had the brand new sports car; she’s had everything.

“Then about three months ago we watched a programme on television about 20 things you should do before you die. When the MiG flight was shown my wife said she’d love to do that. I think she had forgotten, and I decided to get it for her this Christmas.”

Although this may seem an unusual stocking filler, Smethurst is far from alone in making such an adventurous choice of present.

As materialism gives way to sensation, experiences — not objects — are becoming the must-have gifts for for those who have everything.

Christmas presents that a few years ago would have been only for the super-rich are now becoming more widespread as professionals look to keep one rung ahead on the social ladder.

Although iPod music machines have been popular this year, the real buzz at new year dinner parties, as guest vie to outdo each other, will be about experience gifts.

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