She’s looking for a book for her elderly mother, something about the countryside.  Ronald Blythe perhaps.

“But did I buy her this last year?”

Terri is doing rosary Advent.

“I will say 70 prayers for you,” she says.

It’s been a rough year. Debs, a non-believer, is touched.

He’s playing five parts in a touring pantomime. The children love it, but at the social club, old people fall asleep. An actor’s life.

(For Arthur)

When they decorate the tree, Billy, 5, drops the glass ballerina.

“It’s fine,” says Granny. It belonged to her mother, but it’s only stuff.

Sam’s secret Santa is Diane from logistics. He barely knows her so buys some hand-cream. He pays more than £10 and feels a failure.

The priest reminds them, “Advent is the season of waiting.”

With no appointment for his hip replacement, Joe is only too familiar with waiting.

Two families panicking about baby formula. Becca, in Watford, because it’s unaffordable; Muhanad, in Gaza, because he can’t fine any for his motherless baby.

Maya, 22, opens December 1^st on her Advent calendar. It’s childish, but her mum always sends one. The first chocolate, the start of Christmas.

December 24th

“2022 – a back-breaking year,” says Mary.

“Yeh, except for Boris tanking, the Women’s Euros and personalised cancer drugs,” says Joe.

“So, roll on 2023.”

December 23rd

Rosie is fuming. Mock exams start on January 3^rd.

“That’s Christmas ruined.”

But she reads about girls in Afghanistan. Mocks are not so bad.