At this time of year I always start feeling like a woman who knows - but refuses to admit - there’s a problem in her marriage.
My first inkling of this tension was a yuletide ding-dong that started after I bought fairy lights for our Christmas tree in 2001.
They were R210 from an online Christmas warehouse in Alaska, or Nebraska - somewhere cold and Christmassy, anyway. When they arrived, I handed over an extra R320 for import tax, bursting with excitement about opening them.
But when my husband Jon realised they had cost me more than R500, he accused me of being wasteful before calling my passion for the festive season “ludicrous and childish”.
Then, he landed a really low blow, smugly telling me US plugs run on a different voltage and that if I plugged them in they’d all blow up, even if I used an adaptor.
Undeterred, and whistling Good King Wenceslas, I scanned the Yellow Pages for an electrician who could change the voltage plug.
But within hours of our first festive row, the realisation of what our argument actually meant hit me like a ton of candy canes. I’d fallen in love with the ultimate Christmas Grinch.
Not since Ebenezer Scrooge has a man greeted the festive season with such roaring disapproval and sneering cynicism. My husband looks forward to root canal more than the season of goodwill. If he didn’t have such a phobia of needles I’m sure he’d have a “bah humbug” tattoo.
You might say this is not such an issue, but for someone like me - who may have been one of Santa’s elves in a past life - living with my husband during December can be as stressful as deciding whether to go with a Norwegian blue spruce or the Nordic fir.
From the beginning of December my mom calls almost daily asking how I’m “coping” and if there’s anything she can “do”. Friends pat me reassuringly and tell me they’re there if I need them.
I would say the tension starts mounting around Halloween. My Christmas build-up starts straight after Bonfire night (Guy Fawkes), and Halloween always means we’re a week away from what I’ve started to call The Christmas Missile Crisis. Which continues in earnest until the tree comes down in January and I get my normal loving and attentive husband back.
On November 6 I dig out all my Christmas CDs - which I’ve now stashed away in a hole under the floorboards after Jon went at my Frank & Bing Sing Christmas CD with a set of car keys after a particularly vicious exchange one December.
Then comes the mulling. While he mulls over ways to get out of Christmas altogether, I start with apple juice for the kids, then cider and wine by the bucket load. And no amount of sarcastic “don’t stay still for too long boys, Mommy will mull you” comments will deter me.
And as the house fills with the Christmas scent of cinnamon, cognac and apple, Jon can be craftily seen in the corner researching conversion to Judaism and itching like he’s physically allergic to the faintest whiff of yuletide happiness.
I deigned to broach what he wanted for Christmas just last week, and was met with a tut and a sigh before being gruffly told he needs a new electric toothbrush - so much for the magic of Christmas.
Since our first Christmas together I’ve wrestled a tree into the back of our car and into the house alone. I have already had to beg and plead for this year to be different and considering I’ll be eight-and-a-half months pregnant by the time I buy the tree, he’s reluctantly agreed to come and help, although I think it’s only out of the fear I may give birth - Mary style - at the local garden centre.
I look longingly like the Little Match Girl through the steamed up windows of happy families all dressing a tree together.
And like the children of divorced parents who tell themselves “at least it means I get two presents this year” I kid myself it’s OK that Jon never comes with me and the kids to see Santa, at least we can queue up again in quick succession for our usual triplicate visit.
But nothing, not even a cataclysmic row about why we need to have three nativity scenes in the house, deters me from my December of peace and goodwill to all men - even the man who approaches Christmas like it’s a week-long waltz with Widdecombe.
But while I wish he wasn’t such a “Christmasist”, it’s not all bad.
Such is his hatred of festive shopping he throws money at one big present for me instead of a few smaller ones. So I’m the proud owner of a Chloë handbag from last year and a pair of Miu Miu shoes from the year before.
I’ve vowed to make sure this Christmas is one that we all enjoy. He’s promised to help me carry the tree, which is step one in my 12 steps of Christmas rehab programme he doesn’t know he’s on.
Now, if only I can find an electric toothbrush that plays Christmas jingles! - Daily Mail