I HOPE your Christmas Day went as well as you hoped for with no major hiccups.

My steak pie Christmas dinner was a little bit different compared to previous years, but delicious all the same.

Prior to the big day I asked my daughter Jenna several times if there was anything I could do to help, or anything I could bring.

But Jenna being Jenna, had everything under control.

That was until I arrived and put a large box on her kitchen worktop and her smiley demeanour quickly changed.

“The one thing I ask you to get,” she snapped at me as though I was the child and she was the adult.

“And you get that spectacularly wrong.”

Well, how was I to know that when she asked me to bring crackers that she meant a box of Christmas crackers, and not a family sized box of cream crackers?

In my defence, at the time of her request, we were both standing at the cheese counter in Tesco, so I naturally assumed ...

However, she never let up all day.

“Let’s pull a cracker,” was the latest sarcastic jibe aimed directly at me.

“Oh no we can’t because we’ll get crumbs all over the floor.”

“What did you get in your cracker?” she goaded me.

“Because I got a Dairylee triangle in mine.

“Who wants to pull another wafer thin cracker?”

The mocking continued most of the day, but I reckoned that on the grand scale of Christmas Day hiccups, mine was pretty small.

Even if my daughter didn’t think so.

At our regular friends’ catch-up, we got chatting about our festive season’s goings-on when I asked where Margaret was, as she hadn’t replied to my text.

“Didn’t you know Janice?” Christine went on to explain Margaret’s absence.

“She had a bit of a fall at her staff Christmas Party the other night.”

I hadn’t heard word, but was intrigued to find out about my usually quiet pal.

“She had rather too much to drink and when I finally found her, she was sitting perched on the bonnet of her boss’s new BMW in the hotel car park,” she said.

I shook my head as I feared Margaret had been arrested for damaging her boss’s flashy car.

“Before I could get to her,” Christine recalled her friend’s fate.

“She had somehow managed to get her stiletto heels caught in the mesh guard on the front of the car.

“And when she tried to step off the bonnet," Christine sighed.

“She toppled head first and fell forward flat on her face.”

Apparently, there was blood everywhere, and poor Margaret was rushed by ambulance to the hospital with various injuries including two black eyes and a broken nose.

“And luckily for her,” Christine added - I was eager to hear which part of her Christmas party night had been lucky for poor Margaret.

“Her boss’s car didn’t have a scratch on it.”

“That’s Christmas parties for you,” added Fiona who was sounding as pessimistic as always at this time of year.

“I’m glad it’ll soon be over because……..”

And off she went on her annual festive rant of doom and gloom.

“I bet you didn’t know that one in five people die from food poisoning from the turkey leftovers every year.”

We shook our heads in silence.

“Yep, and roughly 25 people die from snow and ice related injuries.”

“Really,” we feigned interest.

“And about 50 people are injured by Christmas fairy lights, and…….”

The gloomy rambling continued.

“At least 1000 people are injured putting up their Christmas tree.”

I returned from the toilet to find that Fiona was still on a roll.

“I bet none of you knew that mistletoe is actually poisonous.”

“You don’t happen to have any on you,” my sarcasm was wasted on Fiona as she was in her own wee world of misery, and we hadn’t even gotten to New Year yet.

“Well Fiona,” I decided to make light of her negative chat.

“Now that Christmas is over, and apart from poor Margaret, we all seem to have survived.”

“Do you have any top tips for seeing through the New Year,” asked.

“Well I’ll probably be in bed anyway but …”

“Fiona,” I butted in.

“Did you know that an optimist stays up until midnight to see in the New Year and a pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.

“And as I had steak pie at Christmas, I’m staying up to see if I get turkey at the Bells.”

Whatever you do, have a safe and wonderful New Year and best wishes for 2016.

Janice x