I KNOW it sounds churlish as we approach the season of goodwill and all that, but sometimes don't you just want to tell people there’s no room at the inn?

How many of us will wake up on Christmas morning with a sinking feeling, not because of all that exhaustive fun and frivolity, but rather the lack of it because someone has foisted themselves upon you like the proverbial cuckoo in the nest and will spend the day casting a cuckoo wing-sized dark shadow over the proceedings?

Just how do you deal with unwanted, but self-invited guests other than being downright rude or rictus grinning and bearing it?

Why is it that people you don't see from one year to the next – probably for very good reason if the truth be known – turn up on your doorstep at Christmas or New Year, or even worse, both?

Just when you think you’ve got it all sorted – you’ve invited the outlaws and heaved a sigh of relief when they’ve demurred in favour of the other offspring this year – planned who’s arriving when and for how long, decided whether it’s turkey or goose, puzzled over what to offer to those who don’t like Christmas pudding, or meat, or sprouts, or cranberries or whatever, you get a phone call from that long lost waif or stray you hoped would never find you again.

“Got room for another house guest?” they say, with more front than Scarborough. “I’ll bring the starter…”

And regardless of whether your house is already set to be bursting at the seams with people in beds, on sofas, in attics or as happened to us once, in a Dormobile on the drive plus a tent in the back garden, you say somewhat pathetically “Oh yes, do come, it will be lovely to see you….”

Then when you come off the phone you whinge and whine like some brat wheedling for a Big Mac and give earache to your other half because you didn’t have the guts to say what you really think.

Which is no, you can’t come, the house is full/I don’t want you interfering in my kitchen/you really hacked me off last time you were here/I don’t like you/I think you smell, or whatever mean-spirited sniping you want to come up with.

And when they turn up, you grit your teeth when they commandeer making the giblet gravy and promptly muck it up, leave the bathroom as wet as a swimming pool changing room after 30 kids have been through it, borrow your hairdryer and don’t return it, bowl into your bedroom without knocking while you’re getting dressed, use your perfume without asking, and proceed to tell you and anyone else who’ll listen how Christmas is not about giving any more, but take, take, take… Some years ago a family I know invited a dowager aunt for Christmas thinking she would be going home on December 27.

As time wore on and got dangerously close to New Year’s Eve and the mad party they had planned, they became more fraught as they saw her not just making herself at home, but looking as though she was moving in. There would be anguished hissing whispers behind closed doors along the lines of “when is she going?” and “why don’t you ask her?” followed by “no, you ask her”.

In the end it was the eight-year- old who sorted it. “How long are you stopping, then?” he asked without batting an eyelid. “My mum’s getting a bit bored with you being here…” I’m assured he wasn’t put up to it, but fancy that, the aunt disappeared the next day. Strangely enough she’s still in touch and has even been back to stay, so she’s either very thick-skinned or very forgiving… Which brings me back to Christmas being the season of peace and goodwill – you know, that bit about setting aside your differences and laying down your arms. For however much you might dread unwanted guests arriving on your doorstep or however infuriating they might be while they are under your roof, it doesn’t take much to think positive, smile, and spread your arms wide in welcome.

Because at the end of the day it might be you or me in need of succour and friendship at a time when everyone around you is busily taking it for granted. But I’ll wait to be asked first…