Our vote for the most significant PC innovation of the last few years would be the USB port. Forget your multi-core processors and DDR3 memory, the humble USB port has opened the way for connecting so many different things to a computer that it's changed the way many people use their machines.

One of the recent trends is to use the USB port for power. Each hub can supply 5V at up to half an Amp, which means it's ideal for charging phones, powering Web-cams and running Christmas lights. No, you read that right - the subject of this review is the Dream Cheeky USB Christmas Decoration Kit, the active part of which is USB-powered Christmas lights.

Why not(*) enter into the festive spirit with a set of 16 red and green LEDs, all built into Christmas present-shaped housings and draped around your PC's monitor? Since the lights only take power from the USB socket, they work equally well on Macs, too. They shine in a suitably cheery way and have bits of red, green and silver tinsel attached to them to increase the overall glitteriness. They don't flash, though, which is a disappointment. There's scope here for complex flash-sequencing software or syncing with music played on the PC - something for version 2, perhaps?

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Once you have the lights up and working, you'll notice a gap between light eight and light nine which is intended for the little Merry Christmas sticker which fixes to the top of your monitor and helps hold them in place. The lights aren't bright enough to stop you working, but are bright enough to invite comment from others in the same office, which is all part of the fun.

There's a Merry Christmas mouse mat, too, which works fine with ball or optical mice, but could be a bit small. You can download a Merry Christmas screen saver, which complements the colours of the rest of the kit, animates its message and plays We Wish You a Merry Christmas in a well-arranged, but MIDI-ish way. It has a mute button.

The surprise success of the kit is the conical Christmas hat, complete with white pom-pom and elastic chin-strap. This sets off the PC-user rather than the PC, but is essential for the full effect. Our focus group all thought the hats looked particularly good on other members of the group.

At £9 a pop, some open-plan offices could be full of these kits by Christmas. Now we're not saying what the overall effect of that would be, but we think a good pair of Ray-Bans might be necessary the morning after the office party.