Sometimes the family we are born into isn’t the family we really need. If we’re lucky we find some deep friendships as we pass through life, and it’s these people with whom we should really be spending the days on the calendar that society has marked out as “special.” Sometimes we get very lucky and one or two members of our family are also those with whom we share deep friendships, but that’s quite rare as far as I can tell. Mostly it seems that expectations are reliably dashed throughout the festive season.