When people ask what I’m doing for Christmas this year, I’ve been replying, with not a little bit of glee, that we are “going nowhere and entertaining nobody”. The almost universal reaction is one of wistfulness, if not envy.

Taking the pressure off the festive season and choosing to please only yourselves is something many people fantasise about. Some people feel so hamstrung by responsibility to others (and dare I say it, perhaps are so used to that well-established feeling of Christmas martyrdom) that they never get the Christmas they secretly want.

Thankfully, my husband and I have no such qualms, and for our son’s third Christmas, we’ve decided to do what makes him happy and have it just the three of us. For his first, we hosted my mum, and his second was spent in my husband’s home town at a huge gathering of grandparents, aunties and cousins. Both were lovely, if not entirely stress-free. During the first Christmas, no one was sleeping; during the second, which included a potluck for which I made two massive nut roasts for more than 25 people, only my son was: outside in the pram, being pushed by me, while the food was being served. My sister-in-law took a photo of me through the window: I am standing in the rain, parka over my nice dress, holding a........

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