On Christmas morning, Anna woke at five a.m., just as she always had done when she was small, and discovered that Father Christmas (well, actually, just her father) had left a brightly decorated stocking at the foot of her bed. She refrained from rushing into her parents’ room and bouncing on their bed as she might have done in earlier years, and instead made good headway into the chocolate orange she found inside while she read a magazine and waited for them to stir.

As was their family tradition, they had a breakfast of thick bacon sandwiches with a huge pot of tea in the kitchen, then moved to the living room to hand around presents.

Anna perched on a footstool, sipping her large mug of tea. Her mother passed her a big box wrapped in red and silver paper. ‘Happy Christmas, darling,’ she said. Anna’s eyebrows rose. She had no idea what this was.

She unwrapped it carefully, then lifted the lid of the expensive-looking box. ‘Oh, my goodness, Mum… Dad… It’s gorgeous!’ Inside lay a soft brown leather briefcase, elegant but with the hint of an old-fashioned school satchel about it. She lifted it out of the box and slung it over her shoulder. It was gloriously smooth to the touch and reminded her of the colour of conkers.

Anna stood up and went and hugged her mother and then her father, bag still swinging at her side. ‘I love it,’ she said, stroking it some more. ‘I’ve been looking for something for when I start at BlockTime, but I didn’t want a traditional hard briefcase or a messenger bag. How did you know?’

‘I saw you eyeing it up when we went to the shopping mall,’ her mother said, looking very pleased with herself, ‘and I thought what better present than a smart but very individual bag for a smart but very individual woman about to start a new phase in her career.’

Anna hugged the bag to herself without squishing it. Her mother had always been great at her job, always the perfect female role model, and the fact she felt Anna had the potential to follow in her footsteps meant a lot.

She pulled the bag off her shoulder, arranged it at an angle at the bottom of the Christmas tree, and snapped a photo of it, which she then sent straight to Brody, with the caption: From my mum and dad. I’m going to be a proper businesswoman!

A few minutes later, her phone buzzed in her dressing gown pocket and she pulled it out to find a reply: a picture of a particularly ugly pair of Christmas socks, adorned with a Rudolph with a light-up red nose. From MY mum and dad, his accompanying message read. I’m going to look a right plonker! Anna laughed out loud.

‘What’s so funny?’ her mother asked.

Anna leaned over and showed her the photo. ‘It’s from Brody,’ she explained, and went on to outline how she’d recently encouraged him to get in touch with his parents after years of a strained relationship. He’d been hesitant but had finally listened to her, and they’d invited him up to Keswick for Christmas. ‘I hope it’s going okay,’ she said. ‘This is a huge step for him.’