It's often hard to find any advantages to living with teenagers, but Christmas is the one time of year I actually feel happier than in yesteryear. By your middle years, Christmas has fallen into a pattern - one year your side, the next the in-laws and then chez nous. In fact, as the years roll on, chez nous comes around more often, as grandparents flit over to the Canaries and get themselves invited to other members of the family. So those feelings of angst and guilt just alleviate themselves and you are left to your own devices.

Santa, too, has sorted himself out. Maybe I will become nostalgic, but now all I feel is relief.

You see, I used to make the same mistake every year. Come November, when the hype would be starting, I'd talk about wooden railway sets, rocking horses and books. I envisaged a sort-of Laura Ashley Christmas, where the children's presents would become family heirlooms, the Daddy and I would wear velvet and sip mulled wine and we'd sing carols and go to midnight Mass. I stubbornly refused to listen to what other parents were getting their children. I brought mine around the Early Learning Centre, and we looked at Fisher-Price catalogues. But by mid-December my resolve waned and I would succumb to the current "in" toy. And of course because I had left it so late, a mad panic would ensue. There was the year of The A-Team. Four rightwing mercenaries, - Hannibal, BA, Face and Murdock - flew around the world acting out American foreign policy; Darragh wanted the four figures so that he could presumably do the same. I got three but couldn't get the fourth. This was more than 10 years ago, but I remember that Christmas so vividly - because I went to Newry and then to Holyhead (on the boat in mid-December!) to try to get Face. Every parent I talked to had the four figures. They had bought them in October while I was playing with the wooden train set. In the end a friend of a friend of a friend got Face in Hamleys in London. Between phone calls and bottles of wine, Face ended up costing something like £30!

Then there was the Star Wars year. "Definitely no," I said. "Heaps of plastic costing a fortune. We'll get camping gear and plan a spring camping holiday." Mid-December came, and I had purchased the X-wing fighter and the snowspeeder vehicle, but Luke Skywalker could not be bought for love or money. Again I went to the North - this time to Belfast. No luck. Could I face that boat journey again? "You could get the duty-free as well," the Daddy prompted. Well, I did get Luke Skywalker and I did get the duty-free but the boat couldn't make the return journey for eight hours because of stormy weather.

Do you remember the Transformers? They were robots that could be turned inside out and they became cars, planes, guns, boats or even dinosaurs. But of course there was one that was wanted and couldn't be got - Megalopolis was Darragh's must have. That year, I think his Dad mortgaged his soul and got it.

And then there was the problem of keeping presents hidden. One year stands out in my mind: we set off to my in-laws in the Hiace on a cold frosty night and skidded and skated all the way to Tipperary. Diligently packed in black plastic bags were Santa's presents. Two tired and very worried little boys agonised over whether Santa would know where they'd be on Christmas morning. They cried to go to bed. We arrived at 2 a.m. to find my mother-in-law's house in darkness. She had come to the conclusion that we were coming in the morning so had gone to stay with her sister. I think Santa's delivery came at about 6 a.m.

So as my grumpy teenagers demand money and more money for presents, I happily write cheques. Nostalgia? No way!