‘Tis the season to be jolly and all that jazz, but how many of us really are? The holidays are upon us and it’s a full on assault of food, family and Christmas telly. Non-stop overeating, awkward relatives and alleged “quality time” at home can make for a very stressful period. Happy holidays? Not always.

It’s all very well having so much time off over the festive period but sometimes things get tricky. Who should you spend Christmas with? His family or yours? Who should you invite if you want to host a party? Do you really need to invite his entire extended family and annoying/weird friend? And as if sorting out logistics and the guest list isn’t complicated enough, something will always go wrong over the holiday period.

Firstly the chances of you having a major bust up with your partner are super high. You will be all set to enjoy the holidays together and then something will flare up. It could be the most ridiculous thing but something will get triggered and you will end up shouting at each other and being thoroughly hacked off for at least 48 hours. Even worse, you could end up giving each other the silent treatment for the whole week thereby ruining a good portion of your Christmas/New Year period. Passive aggression is like the kiss of death for all things merry.

Secondly, it’s almost guaranteed that something will break down. The central heating will stop working, the oven will die on you or, as in my case, the car will pack up.  According to the Old Git, it’s just one of those things, but all I can say is that the car was working perfectly fine until HE decided to get up early one morning and fiddle around with the tyres. The next thing I know…the car is no longer in use. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to work out he broke the car and is solely responsible for me not having access to wheels over the entire festive period. Annoying? Just a bit. You can draw your own conclusions as to how I handled that situation.

Then of course there is the pressure to get a bargain in the sales. Some online sales start on Christmas Eve so the race is on to bag yourself a good deal. The whole process is stress-inducing as you may find something you like but decide to think about it overnight, only to rudely discover that it is no longer available 24 hours later. You what??? How can it disappear from the website in just one day? I was so naive and had to learn the hard way. Worse still, is if you decide to take a trip into town to look around the shops. It’s not pleasant (unless you are a complete shopaholic) and consists of a lot of aggressive shoppers rummaging around messy, manhandled clothes racks, giving evils to each other and pouncing on items they deem desirable. Don’t even get me started about the queues.

And let’s not forget about keeping our beautiful, angelic little cherubs occupied for two and a half weeks. If the incessant quizzing about what’s for dinner, when are they going out, what presents they are getting and what snacks are available doesn’t drive you nuts, the continuous whinging and fighting over the iPad will.

But it’s not all bad. In and amongst all of the dilemmas, discussions and disorder there will also be some golden moments. Like sitting at home with Flump, Ludoo and the Old Git watching Star Wars whilst eating Maltesers. Or going out on Christmas Eve to eat big fat American burgers. Or watching Flump and Ludoo have a ball with their cousins. The holiday season is rarely without its issues but that’s just family life for you. Despite the aggro, I’m thankful for the festive period and have appreciated the time spent with loved ones and the break in routine…….Apart from the Old Git ruining my car. Now that’s just unforgivable.