There was only one thing on Janet’s shopping list, but she still tore the strip of paper from the sticky-pad on the fridge and tucked it into her purse. It was a frog-shaped pad which Marcus had begged her to buy when she was picking up extra Christmas decorations at the pound store last November. She was brushing the dusty strings of tinsel, watching lines of foil float to the ground at the lightest touch, when he had spotted the frog pad. He  had loved how its round cheeks suggested it had just finished a delicious meal.

She was not the sort of woman who bought idle knick-knacks for her grandchild, even if they only cost a pound, but it was the first day that Christmas was in the air. Halloween was finally over, its spooky spidery decorations replaced by the familiar glitter and sparkle of the holidays. A plastic Santa Claus was stationed by the checkout, pulling himself one creaking leg at a time into a chimney, where he raised his arms in triumph before laboriously climbing out again. The staff wore reindeer antlers and a few of them murmured tunelessly along to the carols playing over the store’s sound-system. She bought a handful of those reindeer antlers when she returned to the shop the following week, so that the family wouldn’t have to yet again squeeze fragile paper Christmas hats onto their heads and have the same conversation about whose head was biggest. The antlers must still be in the plastic bag at the bottom of the linen cupboard. She must remember to give them away to charity.