Lisa Dawson

The other boy has never owned a pair of long school trousers and is now in Year 6 so it was fierce competition. I hate that middling time when it's chilly enough to sit with a blanket but not chilly enough for Joe not to shout at me as though I'm committing some heinous crime by whacking up the thermostat. Thirdly, it's reality TV season - whether you're a Strictly fan, X Factor or my personal fave, I'm a Celeb, it's time for some serious sofa action. Cue Saturday nights scoffing Quality Street like a woman starved, crying at the X Factor sob stories and shouting at the dog to stay away from the tub.

As the years went by, we upgraded and invested in a fake tree so that the cats couldn't wreck it and the kids didn't eat the needles. We had two cats at the time who were half Burmese, half feral, a horrific combo that meant that they were prone to bringing in headless squirrels and leaving them under the Christmas tree. So this year, we've got a huge nine foot job in the living room and it's amazeballs. At least, I thought it was amazeballs until I realised that on Instagram, Christmas tree decorating is an Olympic sport with competition so fierce, you'd literally sell a kidney to get the right bauble in the correct position.