Do you recall those halcyon Christmases of childhood? Of gifts galore and eating your body weight in sugar? When your only worry was getting to sleep on Christmas Eve?
Fast-forward to adulthood and Christmas is a very different experience. The amount of organising involved could make a CEO sweat, and keeping everyone happy can take UN levels of diplomacy. Instead of anticipating the magic of Yuletide, you’re in a heightened state of anxiety before you’ve even made it to December, as you attempt to juggle your extended family’s requirements with a gift list as long as your arm and a food budget big enough to feed the Isle of Wight.
Family ‘negotiations’ can start months before the supermarket aisles are filled with tinsel and turkeys – mine started in July. And your steely resolve that it’ll be ‘just us this year’? Yet again, you find yourself wavering as
