Firstly, a merry Christmas to all my readers who celebrate the day – for those who don’t, I hope that you have a peaceful break, and a happy and healthy 2024. Fingers crossed that some good things will happen in this leap year.

And for those of you who are up to your armpits in the last Christmas preparations on this Christmas Eve, I hope that you have some time to rest and relax and watch something silly on the television with a glass of something beside you, and your Christmas hat on at a peculiar angle. I shall do this in honour of my Dad, who definitely knew how to appreciate Christmas.

I wrote a piece about Christmas in the middle of the first Covid lockdown in 2020, not long after losing my Dad, and people have mentioned that it helped them to feel less alone at this often difficult time of year, so I’m linking to it here.

Dad in 2017 (post nap, pre Gin and Tonic)

As regular readers will know,  I always like to do something special for the Twelve Days of Christmas – in the past we’ve looked at the famous song, done an Almanac, had various quizzes and have generally had a bit of fun. And since someone pointed out the Twelve Days of Christmas actually start on Christmas Day, from tomorrow we’ll have twelve themed days of Christmas-related fun. See if you can guess what the theme is, and it will start from tomorrow, Christmas Day.