Introducing my manic Christmas tradition

It is a truth universally acknowledged – at least by anyone with a developed frontal lobe – that seasonal enjoyment and growing up are inversely proportional. As the stranglehold of middle age tightens, I am incapable of conjuring the Christmas excitement I felt as a child. And it seems to have been replaced with intense festive angst.

The mood is less holy and more fisticuffs, as it presents an excellent opportunity to ratchet up the festive stress

Samuel Johnson was talking about second marriages when hatching his aphorism about hope over experience, rather than what Americans refer to as ‘readying the home’, yet every year I still try to summon those seasonal spirits of childhood. My efforts border on the authoritarian, kicking off in a prescriptive fashion as Advent starts. I blame my mother – and not just because it’ll save in therapy fees later. She was wilfully resistant to my young self’s seasonal yearnings, postponing buying a tree until about a week before the big day, and then returning with something that was only my height.