Chelsea wager helps me fall over the festive finishing line

Oh, do you wish it could be Christmas every day? Well, you are a ruddy lunatic, then. I reckon every four years – as for football World Cups – would be a more sensible suggestion. Christmas is so intense – if there was one every day, I would not survive a week. I feel like I need 11 months of sleep to recover from this one.

Amid all the enforced positivity, greetings cards, presents, TV specials, and general demand for 24-hours-a-day cheer, the fact that the average Christmas-infested human being ends up having to double their lavatory workload is just brushed under the carpet. Yuletide logs have been going straight through me and the Sudocrem share price is rocketing. They don't mention this in the John Lewis adverts, do they? Never mind Sir Elton John – what about Sore Elton John?

Of course, witnessing the joy that Christmas brings for children is truly magical, but even that brings its own pressures for parents. I was flapping like a canary on Christmas Eve, making sure I had done everything possible to keep the Santa Claus illusion alive. One mistake can be ruinous. I remembered just in time in the early hours of Christmas Day morning to pick up the carrots outside our front door and lob them into the adjacent meadow, grunting like a satisfied stag just in case anyone was listening.