SO that was Christmas. Although some may regard the festive season as still ongoing, at least until the Twelfth Night, I for one am breathing a huge sigh of relief. For me it is over and I survived.

I survived the weeks of hype leading up to the big day, the uninspired, plot-less hour-long soap-operas where someone was killed/was born/ was kidnapped by a drunk (delete as appropriate), and the unwanted attention from middle-aged 40-stone office workers, who stumble around the pub on Christmas Eve, holding aloft a sprig of mistletoe and poking people in the eye with their novelty flashing antlers as they desperately tried for a Christmas kiss.

I survived the heaving shops, where people would rather rip your face off than go without the last shower gel and deodorant gift-set the shop had to offer.

And I survived the family.

Whoever said Christmas Day was all about the family obviously didn't have one. The cosy Dickensian view of life around the dinner table is confined to the pages of fiction.

Bob Cratchett didn't come home from the pub reeking of Christmas sherry after "a quick Christmas pint in the pub" while a gin-soaked Mrs Cratchett turned the festive air blue because the turkey was burnt. And I don't recall Tiny Tim throwing a tantrum because his "stupid" parents bought him the wrong sort of crutches.

Such things were the norm in the Folks' household.

My two nephews were undoubtedly the main focus of the day and were showered in gifts. But while the youngest of the two, the one I call the Mite, who is not yet 18 months old, was the picture of delight gurgling contently at his presents, the eldest, who will be three next month, was hell personified.

Up until this point I had always referred to him as the Golden Boy, given his unnerving knack of holding the attention of the entire family just because he was the First Born.

But the Golden Boy is no more. From now on he will be known as Cry Boy.

Although at first he looked like he would hold on to his enviable GB tag, the day soon soured as his boredom threshold lowered with each new toy.

In no time at all the room was littered with discarded cars and trucks, some still in their boxes, while the one thing he truly wanted for Christmas was nowhere in sight -- a battered fireman's helmet bought for him last year, which was holed up in his mummy's house some 10 miles away.

No matter how much his mummy, my Big Sis, tried to explain that she had had two glasses of dirty beer and could not drive home, Cry Boy just wailed. He wailed through his turkey dinner. He wailed when the rest of us were tucking into Christmas pud, and, if it wasn't for the fact that the lack of air because of his wailing actually made him go purple and ultimately floppy, he'd still be wailing now.

It was all too much for most of us. Nana Flo made use of her deafness and switched off her hearing aid and sat there in bliss. My dad and Cry Boy's dad, Billy Boy, made use of their drunkenness and switched themselves off.

Big Sis tried reasoning with a distraught two-year-old while I sat there trying to think of a happy place.

Mother Dearest's patience was the first to go. Suddenly turning into the Grinch, she collected his toys, stuffed them in a bag and told him she was going to go to Barnardo's, and threatened to tell him the truth about Father Christmas.

It don't know if it was the shock of that or the lack of air, but there was peace was again on earth.

The magic of Christmas. Thank God it's only once a year.