What do we really want from the PM this Christmas?

Everybody is waiting anxiously to see what the Prime Minister will announce on Thursday as part of his ‘winter plan’ and what that means for the festive season.

There have been suggestions that Boris Johnson will try to bring some festive cheer into our lives – pulling a Yuletide easing of lockdown rules out of his ministerial dispatch box, like a blonde Father Christmas reaching into his sack for an extra special present.

And, let’s face it, we all deserve to find something that will cheer us up under the Christmas tree this year, after what has been a particularly grim 12 months to forget. I don’t imagine there’ll be many jokes in the Queen’s Christmas address – 2020 could be the very definition of an annus horribilus.

The possibility of getting together with friends and family – especially after all the time we've had to spend apart – really does feel like a gift.

The ideal of the festive season is that it brings people together, it’s captured in every TV ad break you’ll see between now and December 25 with at least three generations gathered round the dinner table for possibly the only time each year, gazing in admiration at some bronzed behemoth on the carving plate.

Although in reality it can be stressful and fractious, Christmas should be all about togetherness and sharing time together.

The question is, what would you be prepared to sacrifice in order for that to happen? Do we want a slice of normality (with pigs in blankets on the side) so badly that we’re prepared to be confined to quarters afterwards again afterwards as the payback?

Will Christmas end up like horror film The Purge where, for a very brief period, the whole country goes bananas and anything goes?

Whilst I love Christmas and it is special (although little seems to have been mentioned about all the other religious festivals that have sunk by lockdown) I’m not sure I want to be unwrapping a few days of merriment if, as well as indigestion and a hangover​​​​​, the cost is also a covid surge and an instant return of lockdown.