We’re ready. This year, we’ve one christmas tree in the living room, we have lights on a really skinny birch tree in the front garden, and we have another christmas tree right out in front of Pádraig’s window in the back garden. It’s not huge, but it’s respectable enough.

Let’s hope Santa won’t get mixed up or confused about where to leave the presents… And if he does… that won’t be the end of the world either. I’m not saying that I’d be getting like my mother who, when we asked her what she wanted for Christmas, always said ‘I want you to be good’. I like surprises and I like presents. But, I must say that I am happy already. I feel like as if I had got my christmas present already.

This year, it feels for the first time in many years that we are home, all together, the whole family in one place, as happy as we can be.

It feels like the Christmas we’ll be looking back to saying ‘how nice was that year when we were all together back in the house’!