I have to admit to being a sucker for Christmas. As soon as the carols, Christmas songs and ads make their debut in December, I’m singing along and getting all teary-eyed. Chris Rea’s Driving Home for Christmas is a particular favourite and with good reason. When we were first married and the twins were babies, we used to travel from our home in Shanagolden to Sean’s family in north Cork. We’d have dinner there and then take to the road for my home parish of Avoca, Co Wicklow.

Those were the days before motorways so there were lots of villages and towns to drive through along the way. We’d be lucky if we got the twins to sleep and woe betide if we were stopped at a brightly lit set of traffic lights and they woke up. There’d be hell to pay and instead of two angelic cherubs arriving in home, there’d be a pair of very cross weasels.

After a few years of that madness we stayed home on Christmas day and began to build our own traditions around this precious family time.

That family time comes through in the Barry’s Tea train set ad which, believe it or not, has been on the go since 1994. It’s such a lovely story, so well told and it always hits the mark for me.

I also love the new Lidl ad. It’s all about family too. The old house under the hill which the granddad has moved out of is given a spring clean as all the family join forces to bring it to life for Christmas. The nicest scene is when granddad looks at the empty chair where his late wife once sat. Just for an instant that memory is there until a little granddaughter sits in the chair. The timing is perfect and the ad is totally real and utterly charming.

The only thing I don’t miss at Christmas is killing, plucking and pinning 150 turkeys. It was a job I hated and it turned me right off turkey. Every nook and cranny of the house used to be filled with plucked turkeys waiting to be pinned and have their feet cleaned. There was no fear them going off as we’d no central heating and apart from the kitchen and breakfast room, every room in the house was freezing.

We sold the turkeys New York-dressed at Clarke Delahunt’s sales yard in Ashford and that was a real adventure. My mother and I would fill the car and trailer with turkeys. It would be the small hours when we headed to Ashford armed with sandwiches, a couple of flasks of tea and hot water bottles. We’d pull in near the mart and watch the queue develop. The trick was not to be too early or too late. You needed to be in the middle of the queue.

I was about 14 or 15 at the time. In thinking about it, that meant the five younger ones ranging in age from four to 13 would have had to get themselves dressed, fed and out to school that morning. Life was anything but easy in the years after my father’s sudden death at the age of 50 and time for family life was scarce. So because you never know what the year will bring, treasure those who are close to you at this and all times of the year. CL