But we’d loved it, his energy. And when the big day finally arrived, he’d be almost uncontainable. He’d be really keen for us both to try to guess what was in the multi-coloured boxes – always four or five for me and at least twice as many for Mum – and he’d sit there grinning while we shook and squeezed the parcels, bouncing with enthusiasm, jittery with a breakfast of chocolate coins and fizzy wine inside him. He was absolutely terrible at wrapping though, so there was always the corner of a box sticking out, or a strip of black cardboard where he hadn’t cut the paper big enough to go all the way around. Not that it mattered; Dad would always put each present into at least one extra box, making it impossible to tell what was inside. He once gave Mum a pair of diamond earrings in an old washing-machine box, making her climb right down inside to find them taped to the bottom. And when I got my Playstation a few years back, every controller and every cable was wrapped up in a separate package. He’d even taken the power-lead from the plug, putting them both in separate margarine tubs. It took almost an hour to unwrap it all. He didn’t stop smiling once.

And now none of that will happen anymore. We’ve barely bothered with birthdays either these last two years. They remind us of him too much.

The first Christmas was, with a few exceptions, the worst day since Dad had died. Neither of us had left the house for weeks – not since the big funeral – and we didn’t realise what day it was until we turned on the TV that morning. Mum screamed – an animal moan – and pulled the TV off the wall where it lay until halfway through January. She went upstairs then, shut herself in her room and didn’t come out until the evening, her eyes burning and barely open. I’d sat on the sofa, watching loads of old TV series on my laptop and crying occasionally. The closest I’d got to turkey dinner was eating roast chicken flavour crisps all day.

So this year won’t have to do much to improve on that.

We get to Nanna and Grandad’s and are greeted immediately by the smell of baking and cooking. There’s a stack of mince pies fresh from the oven on a cooling rack, and Nanna isn’t happy until I’ve had three of them with my cup of tea.

Mum nibbles at one, then leans over the kitchen table that we’re all sitting at and squeezes my hand, ‘After lunch, shopping. OK? I’m going to lie down for a bit.’ She takes herself upstairs.

‘How’s your mum doing, Josh?’ Grandad asks.