Tis the season for disagreeing with your spouse about everything

The older I get, the more Scrooge-like I become. I’m dyspeptic, misanthropic, curmudgeonly, parsimonious and unsentimental. Caroline, by contrast, is even-tempered, sweet-natured, charitable, generous and easily moved. Yet paradoxically, I love Christmas, whereas she regards it as a time of year to be endured rather than enjoyed. This inevitably leads to a number of arguments and, as with everything else connected with the festival, they’ve become ritualised. So here are the rows that are guaranteed to occur in the Young household at this time of year.

The season always begins with a heated discussion about external lighting. My ideal is to go Full Chav, with a giant neon-lit Santa plastered over the front of the house, along with sleigh, reindeer, elves… the lot. Caroline, on the other hand, would like absolutely nothing. We usually end up compromising on some discreet Christmas lights on the magnolia tree in our front garden — and by ‘discreet’ I mean soft, yellow bulbs that don’t flash. I then sneak down in the middle of the night and hang an electronic ‘Merry Christmas’ sign above the front door, and if she’s feeling tolerant she pretends not to notice it.

Next on the agenda is the tree argument. No, this isn’t about the size — after years of being worn down, she now grudgingly accepts that anything less than eight feet is pathetic — but about when to get it. If it were up to me, I’d stick it up straight after bonfire night, but Caroline’s preference is last thing on Christmas Eve. This year, I agreed to delay it until 19 December on account of the new addition to our household — an incontinent Vizsla puppy. God knows, Leo doesn’t need an excuse to do his ‘business’ on the floor, but having a large tree in the sitting room won’t help.