How Not To Behave Like A Teenager At Christmas

HANDS UP if if you’re surprised to learn that new research from Relate has now found that 55% of people say Christmas places extra tension on relationships.

- Hattie Crisell

Anyone? Thought not. No surprise either to learn that the counselling charity has a 58% rise in website users every January, as the nation picks up the pieces after a thousand festive fallouts.

I know the feeling. I’m a professional 35-year-old woman who left home 16 years ago. Yet, ensconced in the family home at Christmas, I become a sensitive 13-year-old who, one recent year, sobbed on the single bed in the spare room all Boxing Day after a turkey-related argument with my sister (also grown-up and a parent herself ).