Surviving family over the festive season

This year I decided to spend Christmas according to an underappreciated colleague of Freud’s.

Did gran really just say what I think she said?

That time is here again.

The whole family has come together to celebrate yet another year of avoiding each other's calls and forgetting birthdays by exchanging socks and mini toiletries and consuming enough food and alcohol for the entire population.

Naturally, after not seeing each other for most the year, everyone wants to have a lovely time together.

Everyone wants to have the perfect Christmas.

So, instead of saying how it really is and risking disaster, you all grit your teeth and try extra hard to get on superbly and have a pleasant and problem-free time.

But then, as it inevitably does, something goes wrong.

Someone makes a provocative comment.

The thing that happened last year is brought up.

An argument breaks out.

Politics.

Yet again, Christmas is ruined.

In trying to make the festive season with our families as good as it can be, we play the game that everything is 100% hunkey dory.