I wake up three hours after I fall asleep. The amount of sleep I get on Christmas Eve seems to be decreasing each year, probably because my average falling-asleep time gets steadily later due to my rather worrying Internet addiction. Maybe, eventually, I’ll just stop sleeping altogether and become a vampire. I’d be good at that.

 Not gonna bother complaining about my sleeping pattern right now though, because it’s Christmas and this is the one day of the year when I should at least try not to complain about anything. This hard when my brothers two-year-old son is hitting you in the face with a pillow at six o’clock in the morning.

I say something along the lines of ‘nooooo’ and retreat under my duvet, but this doesn’t stop Alexander from following, tearing back the covers and crawling on to my bed.

‘Bella,’ he whispers. ‘It’s Christmas.’

‘Mm.’

‘Are you awake?’

‘No’

‘You are!’

‘No.’

‘Bella.’

‘Alexander…go wake your father up.’

‘My father said I wasn’t allowed.’ He starts ruffling my hair. ‘Bellaaaaaaaa -’

‘Ugh.’ I roll over and open my eyes. Alexander is completely under my cover, looking at me, wriggling with excitement, his hair sticks up on his forehead and end like a dandelion. Ben and I have discussed at length how it’s possible for Alexander to be related to us, since he’s the literal embodiment of joy and we’re both miserable fucks. We concluded that he must have got all happy genes.

Alexander has a Christmas card in his hands.

‘Why do you have a -’

He opens the card and a disgustingly cheerful version of ‘We Wish You a Merry Christmas’ begins to play right into my ear.