Family friction

There's a general assumption that we spend Christmas with our families. But what if you don't get on with your family and bristle at many of their views?

There's no good reason we should spend time with our families if it's just going to mean hostility and bad feeling. We don't hear much about it, but a lot of people no longer feel obliged to visit their family and are much happier spending Christmas on their own or with friends.

Readers responding to a newspaper's agony column were unanimous: If you don't get on with your family, ditch them and make Christmas your own.

Readers shared stories of walking away from tense gatherings, spending the day alone, heading off on trips, or celebrating with friends - and loving it.

The overriding response was simple: protect your peace, reclaim Christmas, and make it a day you actually enjoy rather than an exercise in pleasing others.

I spent Christmas on my own for many years and relished it. That was partly because my father and I didn't get on. Also because my parents had political views very different from my own and it would have been too stressful keeping on the right side of them.

Now my parents are both gone, I don't miss them at Christmas. Jenny and I have a great time on our own and wouldn't have it any other way.
 

No hankering

In general I've never hankered after someone else's life or imagined they're having a better life than me. I've never thought the grass is greener on the other side.

Another person's life may look desirable from the outside, but if you knew anything about their private life no doubt you'd discover all sorts of problems and disappointments and disasters they're carefully hiding from the rest of us behind smiling faces.

They don't have some charmed and magical existence but face the same setbacks and tragedies as everyone else.

I don't understand those people (especially youngsters) who think their lives will be wonderful if they could just become a super-model or a movie star or a famous footballer. Or any kind of celebrity. Be careful what you wish for.

If you have personal experience of any of those supposedly glittering lifestyles, you'd know the reality is very different from the glamorous image. Models for example will soon tell you they don't just swan around the world looking gorgeous, they have to work in freezing cold and scorching heat and maintain an ultra-thin figure. Hardly a magical existence.

Keep it simple

Jenny and I like to have a simple, unpretentious Christmas.

Plenty of coffee (as we're teetotal), a gripping book, a game of Scrabble, a game of chess, an enthralling film or two, a box of chocolates, and a tasty home-made (vegetarian) meal.

Just the two of us, as we don't have any children, our parents are long-gone, and my sister is bedridden with MND.

But we're not supposed to want a simple, unpretentious Christmas. We're supposed to want a totally over-the-top Christmas, and in the four or five weeks run-up to the big day, we're urged to buy Christmassy stuff by the lorry load.

If you don't have a Santa hat or a Christmas jumper or a Christmas tree or a "Santa stop here" sign, or anything else that says "I'm celebrating Christmas big time, what about you?", you're clearly not pulling your weight.

It's not as if Christmas has any obvious purpose apart from boosting commercial profits and hosting family reunions.

I'd like to see Christmas disappear in favour of Thanksgiving, which the UK doesn't bother with. I like the tradition of giving thanks for all the good things in one's life, all the year's unexpected blessings.

That seems like a better idea than getting paralytically drunk and compulsively over-eating.

Forgetful

My poor memory is a constant embarrass-ment. Jenny remembers about four times as much as I do and is always reminding me of things I've completely forgotten.

Do you remember that woman we met in Sydney, who had serious sunburn and persistent hiccups, she asks me, and I have no recollection of her whatever.

Sometimes, when I don't remember a whole string of things, I'll pretend I remember some of them just to reduce the embarrassment.

It's sad that whole chunks of my life have vanished without trace. I can remember very little of my schooldays for example. I can remember the schools I went to and a lot of the teachers and pupils, but nothing much beyond that.

If someone asks me about the book I've just read, it's all I can do to recall the basic details of the plot and the main characters. Even while reading the book, any character who disappears for 50 pages and then resurfaces is an enigma. I struggle to remember who this person is and how she fits into the plot.

My poor memory does have a few advantages though. I forget bad experiences as if they never happened. So I don't nurse grudges and resentments.

Did I have a normal memory as a child? I don't remember.

Secret spending

It seems a surprising number of adults hide their purchases on things like beauty products, gambling and clothing from their partners as part of a pattern of secret spending.

A survey of 4000 adults showed that men on average spent £2545 without their partner's knowledge in the past year. Women spent an average of £1769.

The young are more secretive with their spending than older generations, with an average of £4303 in the past year. Those over 55 spent an average of just £384.

Jenny and I have never bought anything secretly, except presents to each other. We wouldn't dream of such sneaky behaviour. And we aren't embarrassed by anything we buy. I might think Jenny has been a bit extravagant, she might think the same about me, but secret spending never crosses our minds.

I think it says something negative about the nature of your relationship if you feel you can't be upfront about what you're buying. Especially if your secret purchases are so hefty that you're getting into alarming levels of debt that the other person doesn't know about.

How can you justify the secrecy?

PS: The figures above are mysterious. How are they compiled? Do people really remember every secret purchase they've made over the last year? And the exact price they paid? Or are the figures based on estimates?