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Mums and dads of students home from university for Christmas! How terrifying are the numbers on your smart meter since they got back?

While it’s great to see them again, giving your life some meaning after the gaping void they left when they flew the nest, suddenly the heating’s on for hours every day and the washing machine thinks it’s doing a triathlon.Returning to your childhood home after that sweet taste of independent student life is a chastening experience. For a start, everyone goes to bed at a time when you normally go out. And they get up about an hour before you usually get in.On the plus side, there’s the deep joy of your dinner literally handed to you on a plate every night, all you have to do is turn up and eat it. That and the wi-fi works all the time.Your childhood pets stare at you like you’re some sort of ghost, they haven’t seen you since September (like they know what September is) and had given you up for dead. To quote Bill Hicks, they look at you like they’ve just been shown a card trick. Yet here you are, sprawled out on what has been their sofa for some time now.While students comfortably keep the hours of a nocturnal, streetwise alley cat, these days the Bank Of Mum And Dad is a dwindling dawn-til-dusk operation. When you’ve got a vivacious young adult back in the house for the first time in months, it makes you realise just how old, jaded and knackered you’ve become.Be honest now, if you got the chance to live the life of your student offspring, you’d be in hospital on a drip within a week.

Being young is a relentless business and, luckily for them, they are indestructible, while you’re like an iPhone on about two per cent and you can’t remember where you left your charger.So, it’s Christmas on Sunday. Hope you’re as ready as you can be for these things.

Even though the country’s gone to the dogs, we can hit the pause button for a day, shut the front door and all be under the same roof for a little while as we eat like pigs and drink like fish.This column may occasionally come across as cold and cynical (that’s what 30 years in journalism does to you) but thanks for reading and have a great Christmas.

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Who's The Daddy: Oh to be a student again, especially at Christmas