Christmas is for children.
Which is weird because mine have always put in zero effort.
Here are a few things you need to know about the festive season with children.
Christmas trees are dangerous
Even if you have those well behaved small children who never climb shelves and frisbee books at your face Christmas can be a testing time.
To be fair planting a tree in the front room then throwing a shed load of sparkly sh*t on it is criminal negligence if you have small children in the house.
Your tree will end up bizarrely naked on the bottom.
Over the twelve days of Christmas felt robins, knitted snowmen and glittery reindeer will slowly creep higher and higher up the tree like the weeping angels in Doctor Who.
By Christmas day you will be playing a dangerous game of buckaroo with a four foot tree in the middle of your front room.
Why not incorporate this into the day's entertainment by sitting elderly relatives next to it and running a festive sweepstake on their chances of survival?
Oh what fun it is to ride on a one horse open sleigh!
Your partner and family are weird.
Every family has their Christmas traditions but it's only when you bring two families together that you realize that something your parents managed to pass off as entirely normal is actually downright bonkers. Like my dad's vegetarian prawn cocktail substitute - carrots whittled into the shape of tiny fish - or my Gran wrapping up stuff from around her house just so there were lots of presents to open.
'Ooh look a can of air freshener. Thanks Gran!'
'It's not to keep it's just for opening.' *snatches air freshener back*
Gath'ring winter fu-u-el!
Small children don't actually like Father Christmas.
There is no better festive entertainment than watching a room full of small children run screaming from a sweaty man in a polyester fat suit and a fake beard.
This is because small children have an innate fear of strange men climbing into their bedrooms in the middle of the night which can only be a good thing.
Either that or they've all been reading too many Daily Mail articles.
And a partridge in a pear tree.
You will pretend to call Father Christmas every time your child misbehaves.
This will have no effect on their behaviour whatsoever.You will have read research in the Guardian about how you should never try to get your children to behave by threatening them with the naughty list.
You will conveniently forget all this and spend the weeks before Christmas Eve pretend calling Santa every time your children annoy you.
Which will be A LOT... see next item.
Pa, Rum, Pum, Pum, Pum.
Christmas for small children starts early.
I'm not talking 5am on Christmas Day I'm talking October. As soon as you finish trick or treating get ready to be asked 'Is it Christmas yet?' every single hour of every singe day.
Be sure to get your own back by dressing babies and toddlers up as an elf and sending the picture to everyone you know.
Merry Christmas one and all!
If you're stuck for a stocking filler this Christmas why not but the book 'How to have a baby and not lose your sh*t' available from Amazon now.
And come visit the Eeh Bah Mum blog and Facebook page.