The first-person narrator notes that "There are Difficulties" with his family members and with Christmas. Some of the family are criminals, others are jerks, and others are poor. The relatives are an unpleasant lot who mostly avoid each other, "Except Aunt Florrie, who'd invited herself to our house for Christmas Day every year for forty years."

The family's father is an "Importer of Novelties," which seems to mean all things plastic, and the house is decorated accordingly. "Our home is lovely, too, at the moment. Ten-foot tree; holly and ivy and mistletoe everywhere, and they're all plastic. My mum is ever so happy there are no needles and bits to Hoover up." The lounge has a "three-seater English leather Chesterfield" with a permanent depression caused by enormous Aunt Florrie sitting in the middle of it—and taking it all for herself—every Christmas. It seems to...