Our precious Christmas

This Christmas was to be C like no other for my family.

- Rebecca Wilcox

It's not often that someone can know beforehand it will be the last time you dish out turkey and pull crackers at the table with your mother but that's what this year has been for us.

You see, my mother, broadcaster and campaigner Esther Rantzen, has stage four cancer.

She thought she would be dead in spring but a miraculous drug has meant we have another Christmas with her, a wonder we couldn't have imagined possible when she was diagnosed in January.

I was determined to make the most of it. I ordered two turkeys, I didn't want to risk the green turkey disasters some families faced on Christmas morning.

Decorations went up in November and were added to and finessed right up until and Mum my sister, Miriam, arrived just before Christmas.

Their room was festooned with holly and glitter, a large box of goodies was placed on their table, filled with everything they might need or want during their stay.

Their elderly rescue cat, to which my family is horribly allergic, was to stay in his room but was not left out of the merriment. He was gifted treats, including a fabulous scratching post that looked like an enormous palm tree.