No one should have no one at Christmas, say the adverts. And from every TV screen, billboard, bus and TV rerun, from the day the first jingle of bells leak from the first supermarket speaker, blares the message: be with your family. Even if you don’t like them, now is the time to make peace – or at least observe a ceasefire. But there are many people who can’t or won’t, do that today, and they too deserve a happy Christmas.

Of course this season can be difficult for anyone. Young adults mothball the independence and breathing space they have spent years painstakingly building, riding the trains and roads back into childhood. Meanwhile parents suppress their tensions while they plan and execute the military operation which a traditional celebration demands. Workaholics suddenly have to gear down into sherry-soaked indolence; alcoholics endure heightened temptation. Don’t forget politics: across the country today there will be many young Remainers who’ve come home to their Leave-voting parents – or in some cases vice versa – with both sides dreading the arguments to come.