All things considered, I’m not terribly excited about Christmas this year. Like I have done for all of 2016, I am just willing time to speed up. Buying presents seems pretty pointless, a feeling which has spread throughout my family. Relatives are donating to various cancer charities instead and as I walk aimlessly around town on the hunt for a piece of crap I have to stop and ask myself, what’s it all about? What is the point in all this? Give me all the presents in the world, nothing will ever compare to getting the all-clear I’m so desperately after in January. In the words of Mariah: “All I want for Christmas is... to be cancer-free.”

If someone had told me this time last year, three weeks before Christmas, that I’d have been diagnosed and treated for cancer, I’d have believed them as much as I believe in Santa. Maybe that's the point: that no one knows what card they're going to be dealt, so Christmas has to be about getting stuck into living. It has to be about revelling in each other, overindulging in everything that makes us happy and celebrating our existence in the present moment. With that in mind, I’ve bought myself a new little black dress. I will put on some false eyelashes (mine have pretty much fallen out). I will paint my lips red and my nails gold. I will allow myself a glass of champagne. I will have a good time. And I urge you all to do the same, please; eat all the turkey, ham, cheese, stuffing, mince pies and chocolate; drink all the booze; buy all the Christmas tat; drunkenly dance at all the Christmas parties; tell your family and friends that you love them, dearly. Life is too short not to. Wishing you all a very Merry Christmas and a very healthy 2017.