SO what are you doing for Christmas? Probably not what you want.

It's not just the work or the expense of Christmas that drives so many people scatty - it's the effort that goes in to keeping everyone happy. That's the really difficult bit. So that instead of a happy festive time with the family, it is often in danger of becoming one vast emotional overload.

Do you spend it with his parents or yours? Invite your family or his? What about the aunts, the uncles, the sisters and brothers? Could you do Christmas Day with one lot, Boxing Day with the others and what about New Year?

And so it goes on....

The urge to be together with our families for Christmas is lovely and wholly admirable. It's just that the practicality of it all that gets a bit wearing. Fine when everyone married people from the same village. Tricky when it's someone from the other side of the country, or the world.

You might well spend the day driving between two families - lunch with one, tea with the other. Or, in a true nightmare scenario - early Christmas dinner with one, and - oh how lovely! - turkey and plum pudding with the other.

I know, I've done it. Well, not two turkeys, but two enormous meals. Driving, pregnant, sick and stone-cold sober through the sleety darkness of a Christmas Day afternoon, husband and brother-in-law snoring beside me, a fractious toddler kicking the back of my seat. We'd left behind one lot of family who thought we were rushing away far too soon , and were going to the other who anxiously thought we'd arrived much too late.

At which point I decided that everyone could come to us - which they did for the next 18 years. Chaos, but at least everyone was included. And the bonus was that after a few days in our house, grannies and aunties really appreciated the peace and order of their own homes again.

But sometimes seems that for every person we make happy with a Christmas invitation, there's going to be someone else disappointed. However large our hearts, our homes are a bit more limited.

So we have rotas and turn and turn about, which is fine for a while, until someone wants to do something different. And the result is often hurt feelings and guilt all round.

Until he realised quite how broke he was, Senior Son thought of going to Australia this Christmas. Though I'd miss him dreadfully, I said "Go for it."

There are 364 other days in the year when we can show our families how much we love them.

And we don't have to stuff them with turkey to prove it.

NOT made your Christmas cake yet? No pantry full of puddings or freezer full of mince pies?

Relax. The good news is that even Jane Asher - the paragon of perfection and the queen of cake makers - does not make her own Christmas cake. Instead, she has one sent round from the shop she owns.

And if all else fails, she says, just buy a shop one and soak it in booze.

If it's good enough for Jane...

* * *

THE German ambassador has accused British schools of whipping up anti German hatred because they concentrate too much on Hitler.

Possibly - Smaller Son did Hitler's Germany for GCSE and then all over again for A Level. Hardly a balanced world view of the last few thousand years.

On the other hand, as hardly anyone studies history any more, maybe the anti-German feeling has more to do with all those towels on the sun beds.

Stop grabbing the sunbeds, Ambassador, and we might all live in harmony again.

* * *

DENISE Hendry, wife of former Scotland football captain Colin, nearly died after cosmetic surgery.

A supposedly straightforward lipsosuction operation punctured her bowel in six places, and led to septicaemia, renal failure, cardiac arrest and a collapsed lung. Eight months and ten operations later she is healthy again but still has scarring and an open wound on her stomach.

"If I have to live with it, that's fine," she says, glad to be alive.

But as more of us opt for surgery just to make us look good, it's a timely reminder that all surgery involves risk. And some procedures just aren't worth it.

"I often ask myself why did I do it," says Denise, "My stomach wasn't that bad before." And that's the real tragedy.

If you're thinking of cosmetic surgery, think twice, then think again. And if you're considering it just so that you can wear a bikini again - well why not just settle for a one-piece cossie?

It could be a lot safer.

* * *

NEVER had much time for Jack Straw ever since he was a rather prissy president of the NUS in my student days.

But it was wonderful to see his student son William leading the marchers against his dad's government's plans for top up fees last week.

William has also written sensible and scathing articles on the subject. His father is clearly encouraging the lad to live his own life, have his own opinions and stand up for them, even when they're not necessarily the same as his father's.

Jack Straw is an indifferent Foreign Secretary, but I think he might be a pretty good dad.

* * *

BACKCHAT

Dear Sharon

If I'd seen five-year-old Shabeez Iqbal on a train, I probably wouldn't have spoken to him. Last summer, I was going back to my car at a service station on the M6 when I saw a small boy, maybe two or three years old, wandering alone in the middle of all the traffic. Of course, I took his hand to keep him out of the way of cars and said we'd look for his mummy. Suddenly this banshee, presumably the boy's mother, swept up, snatched the boy away from me. She was shouting at him and shouting at me. The boy started crying and probably everyone around thought I was the child abductor from hell.

And yes, if it happened again, I'd probably do the same thing. Better to be shouted at than have a small child run over. But speak to a small child safe on a train? No way.

Peter Farrell, Durham.