I rarely saw my Mum cry as a kid, but I do remember the time she cried over the Christmas lights. Tangled wires are enough to make most of us cry. I think it was a string of burnt-out bulbs that sent her over the edge. Seeing my Mum, the very essence of Christmas magic, cry like that was my first glimpse into another side to Christmas, another side to her, one that didn’t become clear until many years later. Now that I have three children of my own, I understand. Christmas is a fraught and intense season for parents, mainly because we’re now the magicians. We’re the conjurers of twinkling lights, gifts in shiny paper and amaryllises in golden pots. We’re icing gingerbread houses and stuffing turkeys with chestnuts and dried fruit. We’re filling charity boxes with toothpaste, winter woollies and cans of tomato soup. We’re filling stockings with slime and tangerines, scoffing down carrots and leaving trails of biscuit crumbs in the fireplace. We are the magicians. We are the dancing elves. We are Father Christmas and his herd of merry reindeer. No wonder my Mum came undone over the lights. No wonder we all do. Heavy is the head that wears the magician’s hat. And the elf’s hat. And Santa’s hat. And the chef’s toque. It’s a lot. And I’m learning that it doesn’t have to be. In recent years, thanks in part to a pandemic that showed me how wonderfully blissful a no-fuss, zero-events, paired down, steak-lunch-for-five can be, I have given up the hats. And the sugar plum fairy’s wings, too. So much so, that when our ten-foot Balsam Fir, fully decked in lights, bunting and baubles collapsed into the sofa yesterday like a drunk teenager, I actually considered leaving it there until boxing day. Two hours, three arguments and eight billion needles later, the tree was once again standing in all its festive splendour. No one person can be responsible for the magic, and no one person can be responsible for the mess. The best part of the tree falling down was all five of us putting it back up together. It really is a beautiful tree.