Christmas dinner. Not the culinary highlight of the year, perhaps, but never mind the food, feel the heat in the kitchen as families sit down to what will probably be their last get-together of the 20th century. A joyous occasion? Maybe. Great fun? Hmmm. Stressful? Now you're getting there. There's nothing like getting a family around a table to set the atmosphere flaming, faster than a match to brandy. But Christmas dinner is never as bad as you expect it to be, even if the gravy doesn't work out and the roast potatoes are like bullets. It's a meal dreaded up and down the country, but it's often a surprising success.
If you are playing host this year, do get lots of rest beforehand so you're not reduced to tears by not being able to find the melon baller. Don't let everyone go off drinking for hours before lunch, and certainly don't get hammered yourself if you're the one who has to deal with the big, slippery bird. Remember - if you drunkenly drop the turkey, there will be so much grease spilled that someone is bound to slip and fracture themselves on the kitchen floor.
Do take trouble over the food and the table arrangements but don't kill yourself trying to make a gourmet stuffing or a dazzling centrepiece - remember how fiercely traditional people become at Christmas and how curmudgeons have a field day of it? One guest will love your giant silver twigs as much as you do, another will laugh at them; if you decree dinner by candlelight, your father will complain he can't see what the hell he's eating; if you treat the in-laws to champagne, they'll say it's awfully gassy; and, if you make yourself red in the face from basting the turkey every 20 minutes, someone is bound to remark that it has turned out a bit dry . . .
Then there is the whole issue of presents. Parents should have all the gifts wrapped by now. If not, they had better do it tonight and then NOT forget where everything is. A dreadful thing happened to friends last year when they locked everything in the garage and then couldn't, for the life of them, find the key on Christmas Eve. At 3 a.m., there was nothing for it but to saw their way in through the ceiling of a room that connected with the garage. The ceiling was brand new, needless to say, and when the whole ordeal was over, at about 5 a.m., of course they found the key on a hook, under their noses. They had two hours' sleep before starting preparations to have 15 to lunch.
It will be interesting what presents are doing the rounds this year. With the country awash with money, and God knows, maybe even a new millionaire in the family (did your company float this year?) people may have been tempted to go really lavish on the gifts. Extravagant boxes of cosmetics swathed in cellophane, gift-packs of glasses and champagne, pashminas of every hue, something exquisite from the Polly Devlin sale, or the toy-that-you-can't-get-in-Ireland (bought on that early December raid on New York), not to mention crates of wine and heaps of fresh cream chocolates, will almost certainly feature in some households, but possibly not in yours. Maybe you feel prosperity has passed you all by. Perhaps it is not one of your lot who has struck it rich, but the guy next door, wee Sean, who was considered absolutely thick as a child but who now gets more charming and interesting with every newspaper report about his meteoric success in computers.
Mother might be bitter about this, since none of her many daughters was cute enough to catch him, and none of her sons went into partnership with Sean when all he needed was £5,000 to get going. Instead, he was snared by a very common sort of a girl who now has a driver, for goodness sake, and the children down for a school in England.
Even if expensive things don't feature on your table, they will certainly get talked about at the table - in fact, people will probably talk about nothing else. Prepare to hear a good deal about house prices and car prices, about the cost of fitted kitchens and ensuite bathrooms, sun holidays, designer sports wear and the latest computer and hifi equipment. You'll also find people talking about the trouble that young people having finding a home, the mortgages they have to saddle themselves with, how impossible it is to find a good childminder, a builder, a cleaner or indeed anyone who is prepared to work. Cue shocking stories about bone-idle au pairs, uncooperative carpet fitters, and downright criminal electricians.
To diffuse this sort of talk, it is good to have different age-groups at the table. The uncle who has an astonishing knowledge of the American civil war or the aunt who spent many years in the Missions in Africa is more than useful in bringing a bit of perspective to things, as is the teenager who is worried about the homeless. If they are seriously outnumbered, though, it won't be long before the conversation rolls back to computer shares, apartments in Marbella and the advisability of having a bit of sterling tucked away somewhere. To get off the subject, you could try a bout of singing ("Frank, would you give us a bar") or a good quiz . . . although, even a Marks & Spencer's chocolate trivial pursuit game can bring on a bout of competitive rage ("Shut up - I'm telling you it's the Caspian Sea" and so on).
The impending millennium may add weight to the occasion. Weight on its own will almost certainly be a topic as family members size each other up, perhaps after a long absence, and tell each other exactly how they're looking.
"You've put on a few pounds," is the sort of remark that will be made up and down the country just as people are settling into their first drink and handful of Pringles. This is a very unwise thing to say when nerves are very likely a bit jangled anyway. Expect a variety of reactions from the light "look who's talking" to the very heavy - muffled sobs, slammed doors and accusations that no-one understands what it's like to have twins or run a Leonidas franchise.
Most families have spun a complex web of things that can and cannot be said between them, but if there are things that have to be said, then Christmas dinner isn't the worst time to say them. "I'm the only one who would tell you. . " is a handy phrase that can open up any number of frank discussions, be it about how you behaved over Daddy's operation last year, or when you're going to give back the good copper saucepan your wife borrowed two years ago . . . Be honest, own up to things, let the guard drop a bit and don't be too hard on each other. And for God's sake, someone, help with the washing-up. Happy Christmas.