Heaving bags full of festive food through the kitchen door, I started packing away the Christmas shopping.
‘Jingle bells, jingle bells!’ my daughter Maya sang, dancing around excitedly.
It was the week before the big day and having just got home from the last big supermarket shop, I was focusing on trying to find a place in the fridge to fit my turkey.
‘Let me get a cup of tea, then we’ll finish the tree,’ I smiled, as Maya squealed happily.
Maya, six, and her brother Nathan, five, couldn’t wait for Santa to come – they’d both been bouncing off the walls for weeks!
‘What do you want for Christmas?’ I’d asked her, at the beginning of December 2022.
‘A donkey!’ she grinned, and I laughed – Maya was animal mad. ‘Like in the nativity!’
‘Well I’m not sure Santa can get a real donkey down the chimney,’ I said. ‘How about a toy
