Christmas is a time to be around loved ones, reflect on the year that’s coming to an end, and soak up as much festive cheer as possible.
Unless you’re in a soap, that is. In which case it means you end your miserable year in a dramatic and completely depressing fashion.
Yes, sandwiched between the inevitable bright-eyed family films and festive comedy specials that get shown year after year, soap Christmases never quite manage to fill us with the spirit of the season.
Instead, we get family rows, tears and - on occasion- disasters that affect an entire community. While it doesn’t exactly put a smile on our faces, it does make us make us feel better about our family squabbles over who gets the biggest slice of turkey.
And while ‘EastEnders’ is truly the daddy of hard-hitting Christmas Day episodes - using the festive season to shine a light on issues like HIV, domestic abuse and alcoholism - other soaps have followed suit, with ‘Coronation Street’, ‘Emmerdale’and ‘Hollyoaks’ all delivering us with seasonal specials that even the Muppets themselves wouldn’t be able to make cheerful.
Here are 15 of the most miserable Christmases that Soapland has ever given us…