‘On Christmas morning, my sister Vicky gave birth on the newly carpeted bathroom floor. The paramedics turned up wearing Santa hats’

think about it sooner rather than later!!’ My boyfriend finds me frozen in panic at the computer and hurriedly shuts it down. Unfortunately, ignoring the problem only delays the hurt you inevitably inflict on the people you dearly love, since, even with the best of intentions and hours of thought, I have never managed to keep everyone happy.

When we were children, the obvious solution was to alternate between households. With my dad’s immediate family numbering eight, including six ‘spirited’ girls with just seven years between them, he often decided to plonk us on a plane and take us on holiday when it was his turn. This worked with varying degrees of success. There was the year that 13-year-old Kat’s salmonella struck just as we were heading into the Moroccan Atlas Mountains; another where at least four of us had crushes on the same boy and weren’t speaking by the time we flew back home; and one where, aged ten, I shut myself in a cupboard for the afternoon to escape the highpitched rabble — which, 15 years later, frankly still seems like a rather sensible idea.

But year in, year out I’d be letting one half of the family down, and missing them and their traditions like mad. Pre-Skype, I remember