WE HAVE come a long way as a family since those early Christmases when we were so fatigued from being up half the night with a baby that we could barely summon the energy to get out of our dressing gowns by lunchtime.

In fact, I seem to recall that from Year One of Firstborn’s life until Year Three of Secondborn’s – a time span of six years – we had either nasty colds or flu-like symptoms every December 25, on top of the chronic tiredness. Never a good combination for making merry. We probably drank more in the way of Lemsips than champagne.

My father used to call us the Never Wells, which, I suppose, is better than the N’er Do Wells.

And then the Trying Years passed and we entered a pleasurable phase when we could lie in bed, snatching an extra hour of sleep, while the Offspring opened their stockings and played with the contents. We’d have a civilised breakfast before opening our gifts together.

In later years we began a tradition of hosting parties on Boxing Day, which have been hijacked by the Offspring and their friends. Our glass recycling box is, shall we say, a little bit inadequate for such occasions.

But in all these years – 21 to be precise – we have never had what I like to call a Marks & Spencer Christmas. We have never sat around a roaring log fire roasting chestnuts; watched White Christmas while drinking mulled wine from gold-rimmed glasses; set our table with exquisite matching cut glass and hung swags of holly from the backs of our dining chairs. We do not sit around in elegant evening wear.

Our Brussels sprouts don’t glisten in a sparkling white serving dish (they usually get forgotten about and are found the next day) and we rarely get to the flaming plum pudding stage because we’re not that good at feasting. Christmas puddings have been known to languish in the cupboard until May or June and close to their expiry date.

This year it has even been a struggle to get the Christmas tree up and decorated because no-one seemed particularly willing to do it. In the end I made a pact with Secondborn. She was to get the boxes from the attic and put the tree together (we can’t have real ones because our living room is like a sauna if more than four people are gathered there) and I’d decorate it. Which we did, on Monday.

The Man keeps bemoaning that we don’t have any swags, wreaths or lights on the front of our house. I keep saying that we’re not the Griswolds and don’t need our home to look like something from Christmas Vacation.

It’s all a far cry from the idealised television-commercial Christmases with their smiling families and colour coordinated trees, and, if I’m honest with myself, I know that I’d like it to be shiny and perfect because I have been conditioned from an early age to strive for such a thing.

It’s why we frantically clean our houses in the run-up to this one day and why I spent last weekend scouring the shelves of the fridge and dust-busting in the cellar where our spare freezer is stored. It’s also why by now I will have shampooed the living room rug and any other carpets foolish enough to get in the way.

A couple of years ago I even attended a workshop devoted to the wrapping of festive gifts and learned how to make my parcels shimmer with cellophane and gold ribbons.

Since then I have enjoyed the creative process of wrapping but hover over recipients like a vulture as I wait for them to discard trimmings that I can recycle. By next year some people will get gifts that have been tied with the same bows and embellishments for the past three.

Amid all the wrapping, polishing and purchasing of novelty cheeses I often stop to consider exactly why we’re doing all this, especially as an M&S Christmas is not attainable without a staff of stylists and servants.

We’re not of a religious persuasion either. Christmas for us is an opportunity to have festive time with friends and family in the middle of what is otherwise a pretty dire month. And that, of course, answers my question.

Why should we not celebrate the very fact that we have family and good friends and that life has been, for much of the time, kind to us. I suppose, it’s a sort of Thanksgiving festival, with the turkey and decorations but without the North American Indians.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.