Linda Kelsey: I’m considering charging my Christmas dinner guests $40-a-head

Christmas Eve and I find myself, as I’m sure many of you do, rolling up my sleeves for the final push.

All in all, it has been a four month long campaign and, as I consult the spreadsheet showing who among this evening’s 20-odd guests has food allergies, food intolerances, is vegetarian, vegan or simply a foodie fusspot, I feel my festive martyrdom pricking at the edge of my consciousness.

How many times have I done this before: 30, 40, more? Now that I’m 72, why isn’t someone else doing it for me? Shouldn’t I have headed off to the Caribbean instead? Would anyone even notice if I had?!

The thing about being a Christmas martyr is that, like Christmas itself, the martyr default setting seems to kick in earlier each year.

I wasn’t even back from my summer holidays before my sister asked whether it was “happening” this year at my house.

She is the world’s most efficient person in terms of planning ahead – though heaven forfend she should actually do the sit-down Christmas Eve feast herself. I knew it was “happening” because it always does, but I shrugged and said “not decided yet”, just to rile her.

Way back then, in August, I could feel the old festive resentment beginning to spark into life.

My sister gets to occasionally swan off on a festive beach holiday while I’m in the trenches, which I have artfully decorated with swags of holly and fairy lights.

Being a martyr, over the years I’ve interpreted her occasional absence as meaning it’s up to me to look after her two abandoned children. Never mind that they’re aged over 45 and have families of their own. Not to mention her two grandchildren.

I mean, who is going to provide the love, the nurturing, the sense of belonging, if I don’t transform into a latter-day version of Mother Teresa as the days shorten and the countdown to Christmas begins?

You can see how quickly martyrdom builds a head of steam. Considered in terms of its martyrdom quotient, the feast is rivalled only by the annual Secret Santa, which in my self-appointed role of Christmas CEO, I end up planning and executing to the last bow on the last parcel.

This is a great excuse for me to huff, puff and bewail my lot for weeks on end. The protocol is that once I’ve got the guest list, I allocate who buys for whom.

It’s even up to me to decide who buys for me, which rather takes the guessing element out of it. And that should be that. But after assigning the names and texting each individual in turn, the messages and calls start flooding in. “Ooh, what do you think they’d like?”

“You’re way better at this than me.” Which is how I end up wildly searching for ideas on Amazon, doing the one job, the only job, that the guests are supposed to do themselves.

At one grumpy moment in the run-up, after a MoneySuper Market survey revealed almost half the country thinks guests to your home should be charged for their festive lunch, I even considered putting a price on my services at $40-a-head.

Which, considering all the champagne and the sit-down-and-don’t-youlift- a-finger service, would be an absolute bargain. But I also knew that as I can actually afford it, I’d end up looking more Scrooge than Lady Bountiful, which is not a good look for a martyr.

Christmas chez moi is, I admit, somewhat wacky. A curious cross between a United Nations summit (with the potential to go badly wrong) and an episode of Modern Family.

Around the table this year will be my Greek best friend with her African-American partner who stepped into her life after her husband of 40 years decided to emigrate to the States without her. Plus my gorgeous son and his Chinese partner.

My ex-husband, father of our son, will take a seat, too. He has returned to live in his native Germany, but is spending Christmas here and is bringing his new squeeze, a German woman who he recently tracked down on the list, and an extra trestle table will be found, no bother at all.

No, really. My absolute pleasure. But the whole thing is also a massive faff – the sauces, the sweets, the stuffing, the side dishes . . . At the precise moment you are reading this, my martyrdom will be manifesting in the preparation of the roast potatoes.

For me, potatoes at Christmas that are not roasted in goose fat just don’t cut the mustard, but I have been reliably informed that serving a potato cooked in goose fat to a vegetarian is a cardinal sin.

There are several of those around my table this year, so I have a choice. I can deny a goose has ever been near my potatoes or martyr myself to goose fat-free veg. You can see where this is going.

Then there are the vegans who love Brussels sprouts, but not tossed in the hazelnut and garlic butter that I deem essential.

And I caved in long ago over the gluten-free bread sauce. Yes, Christmas sees my martyrdom at peak flow.

After champagne and canapes, and getting my nephew to carve the turkey (even I delegate that), I will plonk myself down at the head of the table, red-faced and sweaty. The candles will be flickering on the tree behind me. Crackers will be cracking. Streamers will be streaming. And then the accolades will begin.

I can hear them now as I write. The mmms of pleasure, and the aahs of appreciation as the clan tucks into the food on piled-high plates.

Inevitably, Ronny will then raise a glass to the wonderful hostess/ creature/woman that is me. If I wasn’t already red in the face I would surely blush. Because the kudos that comes with being the Christmas martyr is irresistible.

For one brief moment I am a marvel. A marvellous mother, a marvellous cook, a marvellous human being. I look around at this curious mix of extended, blended families, steps and exes, who have crossed continents to live in the land I call home.

And for one brief moment I’m at the centre of it all. Feeling loved and purposeful.