All the family were wearing their traditional jumpers: Pete’s with a pudding that lit up on the front; Marcia’s had a Santa on it, and Ruby was in a red sweater with a snowman grinning from her chest. She offered me a canapé of gravadlax and dill on rye from a tray, and I spent the next half-hour catching up with everyone who was there – Pete’s parents, down from Scotland; Marcia’s mum from Manchester who was busy preparing vegetables; Pete’s uncle Tom in charge of drinks; Marcia’s sister Yaz laying the table with Freya. Ben was sprawled on a sofa in the sitting room watching TV with his cousins; Pete’s younger brother Ted and his wife and twin girls waved from across the room where they were playing a game which involved one person wearing inflatable antlers’ horns while the others tossed rings onto them. Neighbours Jess and Ian Ward were settled with their glasses in the conservatory off the kitchen. No single men this time, I noted with relief. One year, they’d invited Nigel, a neighbour and bachelor, in the hope that we’d hit it off. We didn’t, though he got the idea that we did. There was a reason that he was single, and that was that he was the most boring man I’d ever met with a particular passion for lawnmowers, something I knew all about by the end of the afternoon.

‘And where’s your jumper?’ asked Marcia. They’d bought me a blue one with a penguin on it last year, which I had dutifully worn at the time then taken to a charity shop in January.

‘Ah … shrank in the wash, so sorry,’ I said. I was dressed in my usual black, a small nod to Christmas being the tiny silver holly-shaped earrings I’d had made and also sold in my shop.

‘You were never a good liar,’ said Pete. ‘Here, have these.’ He handed me a headband of antlers’ horns instead. Nobody got away with looking cool at their house on Christmas Day. I’d spent many Christmases there over the years and, though I’d offered to host at mine, there was no point really: we’d never all fit in. It was tradition now. Marcia and Pete’s every 25 December, apart from one winter when I was living with my last long-term partner, Richard Benson. He’d come along to their house for Christmas Day for the first two years we’d been together, but wasn’t happy either time. He was threatened by the ease and familiarity I felt when I was with my two oldest friends, especially Pete, who he felt he had to compete with. After weeks of complaint, on the third year, I’d given in and agreed to have Christmas at home, just the two of us.