Today is my birthday. Which - on account of the inflexibility of the Gregorian Calendar - always marks the end of Christmas in our family. Everyone else mopes around at the end of the Boxing Day on account of it being all over bar the undecorating, whereas I can lord it over the minions and demand servitude and gifts aplenty in my own personal extension to the festive period.

Christmas was - as is traditional in our family - really rather good. He smugly declared. Because we are nothing like all the dysfunctional families depicted in seasonal sitcoms, in as much as we can't be arsed to take it that seriously and generally just slack around taking the piss out of each other until everyone's collapsed from overconsumption of good stuff. We don't do religion. Or charades. Goodwill to men (and woman) is OK but, really, you'd have to be a bit odd to reserve that for just a couple of days a year.

The only thing that marred this year was my near-fatal cough and cold, which left me wondering whether it was OK to stay in bed on Christmas morning and helpfully peaked right over my personal three-day festive period. I only know it was NEAR-fatal because I AM STILL HERE. You really are very lucky people.

Possibly mankind's greatest invention.

Allegedly. Chapter 41 in the FG tradition of 'Carshalton Park Fireworks, then all back to ours for sausages, rissoles, barbecue beans and baked potatoes'. And beer. A tradition that's remained unchanged for decades, save for moving 'ours' from my parents to us. Call us creatures of habit.

So... 21 of us, 80 sausages, a vat of beans, a sack of potatoes and a lot of beer. Carslberg don't do family fireworks events...

Stuffing. Cripes, we've only just finished up clearing  after last year.