With families chasing their careers all over the country and beyond, its often difficult to get to know the people we share most of our genes with. All of a sudden Christmas is around the corner, and presents need to be found. What now?
Christmas might well come but once a year, but as far as commercial interests and town centres are concerned, you can safely say that about two months a year are dedicated to it so its roughly eight times the length of a typical British summer. And how do we choose to spend this vast chunk of our calendar? Shopping, fretting, making unfeasible family arrangements and getting grumpy about the ridiculousness of it all.
Most people dont really subscribe to the often heard notion that Christmas is a time for family fall-outs. Its probably one of the few times of year when people get to meet and catch up especially now families are scattered all over the country. Any friction comes from the delicacies of fitting a years worth of unmet aunts, siblings, kids and clan elders into two evenings and still catching the inevitable reality TV grand finale.
And therein lies the problem. We spend so little time with our immediate families...