Well that’s Christmas done and dusted for another year. We had everyone home, which was lovely as we hadn’t expected Ian, our eldest lad, to be in the country at all. The turkey and ham were perfectly cooked by my husband Sean, who takes personal ownership of the meat end of the dinner. While his cooking is great, sadly his tidy-as-you-go skills are poorly developed, so the kitchen looks like a bomb hit it by the time he’s finished. But we don’t say a word about that.

I have an 11-year-old niece of whom I’m very fond of, and every Christmas since she was a baby I’ve splashed out on a lovely dress for her. The kind of dress that as a mother you’d love to buy for your little girl but have the sense not to. Caroline is tall for her age and I reckon this is the last of the children’s dresses I’ll be buying her. At least she still loves them, but that could all change as she hits the teens and, God forbid, develops a taste for grunge or goth.

There was plenty of time to talk over the few days, and much of it concerned the state of the world. It was Lenin who said: “There are decades where nothing happens and there are weeks when decades happen.” There’s no doubt that 2016 will go down in the history books as a watershed year for this century.

The appalling conflict and the fate of Aleppo are beyond understanding. The refugee crisis is seemingly beyond solving as countries slam their doors shut. In the Philippines, the elected president has encouraged citizens to shoot suspected drug dealers on sight. The rise of right-wing political parties in the heart of Europe’s liberal democracies is scary. If you know anything about history, you know this brand of politics offers no solutions to what ails the world.

Then there’s Mr Putin who appears to be sticking his fingers into every little pie. For the life of me, I cannot understand the lack of outrage at Russia’s hacking of the American presidential elections. How did this proud nation allow such a thing to happen? And when they confirmed it had happened, applied no sanction.

Then there’s the election of Donald Trump. I realise Hilary Clinton was an unpopular candidate, but to be defeated by a reality show host takes some beating. Mr Trump appears to be a volatile character and his policies of building a wall on the Mexican border and allowing no Muslims into the country are anything but diplomatic.

I know many people working in American companies based in Ireland who, despite being told their jobs are safe, are very concerned for the future.

Nearer to home, we have the yet unknown fallout of Brexit to contend with. The UK is our biggest trading partner and the idea of reintroducing border controls with Northern Ireland is just unimaginable.

In the same vein, it’s hard to believe that in emerging from a 10-year-recession caused mostly by a construction crisis, we now find ourselves with thousands of people homeless. This is a huge failure of our planning and political systems.

Be gone 2016, and to our readers here’s wishing 2017 will bring better times to you all. CL