As advent gathers pace, I tick off the days with a family ritual: monitoring the physical condition of a relative who is a medical professional, and whose years of service at the laboratory bench have left her with a predisposition to aching joints that, on occasion, render her unable to participate in physical tasks.

It seems to worsen in December and, by the big day itself, she is fully constrained by the affliction that has come to be known in our household as Christmas Paw. She is to be excused from the tasks of fetching the wood in, loading the dishwasher and lugging presents from car to tree. A few eggnogs in, I have been known to remark acidly that it doesn’t seem to hamper her enthusiasm for passing the port – to herself.

But perhaps she knows whereof she malingers. Surveying accounts of the........

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