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Well that’s it for another year then. Thank goodness. Christmas isn't exactly the most relaxing time of year. Cooking Christmas dinner for six, including one helpful vegetarian (me) in my teeny tiny kitchen is no mean feat; and then there’s the enduring mess of wrapping paper, boxes, ribbon, gifts without a home and various bits of half eaten food to contend with.

One of the good things about freelancing is I don’t have to go to an office Christmas party. At first, I thought this was a bit of a drawback, since it effectively means I don’t go to any Christmas parties, being way too old to get invited to anything just for being me.

It’s time to get festive, and so I bring you the alternative Twelve Days of Christmas, designed especially for the lawyer in all of us. It has been a bit affected by the state of the economy, as you will see. Unlike the traditional version, there is no need to sing this one, I doubt it scans very well.

It seems some of us have been stressing about Christmas since 12 November. That’s 42 days before the big event. That’s about 11.5 per cent of the year spent worrying about one day. Most of the stress is down to worrying about which presents to buy, closely followed by concerns about how much the celebrations will cost in total.

Would you rather represent yourself in court or perform your own appendectomy? It sounds like a fairly straightforward question and at first thought, and quite possibly second and third thoughts as well, most of us would plump for representing ourselves in court: there is, arguably, less blood, less pain and less chance of death.