Everything has its season: big noisy gatherings, small family get-togethers, Christmas with two, Christmas all by yourself: I've spent them all. Sometimes with people I love, people I like, people I dislike.... and usually with a mixture of all of these !

The "season" for Christmases for me at the moment is for there to be three of us: me, my elderly widowed mum and my teenage daughter. Time passes and that will inevitably change. I really hope I haven't seen the last of big, noisy, musical Christmas gatherings (which are my favourite kind).

The most difficult thing for me is dealing with my mother's attitude to presents - and to life in general. She is one of life's negative moaners and complainers and Christmas presents bring out the "best" in her. "What on earth was X thinking of, giving me that." "Huh! That didn't cost her much"... and so on. I have had enough of all this negativity, and my Christmas/New Year's present to myself is to draw the line and actually tell her (after all these years !) that I can't listen to that kind of talk any more, either at Christmas or all the year through.

She has really annoyed me (AND made me laugh) today. She had a very specific requirement (as are ALL her requirements) for a particular kind of engagement calendar to post to her friend: It had to be reasonably priced, with an envelope to fit it, with pictures of flowers. Nothing else would do. Simple request ? No ! I searched high and low: there were calendars with flowers but no envelopes, expensive calendars, cheaper calendars with envelopes but photos of mountains....you get the idea. When I suggested that maybe she could send something else... Oh no ! "I've always sent her an engagement calendar like that." I eventually found one: cheap calendar, flowers, envelope. Eureka ! She phoned me today to tell me that her friend had received the calendar, and had complained because it was printed with two Februaries, no August and two pictures of snowdrops. "You wouldn't think she would be so rude as to complain and tell me, would you?" says my mum. Well....my mum needn't have passed the message on to me, either, after all my efforts.... (I was so pleased to have found the blessed thing that I never thought to look through it).

There are no siblings or other relatives, so we will be together for 25th, 26th and probably some of the weekend, too, but this year my daughter and I have decided that we are going to spend New Year's Eve without her. I think that is a fair compromise. Last New Year's Eve my mother came over, sat, complained and read the newspaper and slept for most of the evening - she may as well have been at her own place - and asked to be driven home at 10.30. This year, we want to have NOISY FUN !

- jeanie