When I was small, Christmas meant visiting my nan in St Ives. Her house existed in a state of chaos, overflowing with small, brightly-wrapped presents. They sat in sacks between the antique couches and lay in piles that had slouched against the walls over the preceding days. Her doorbell was rung nightly in the week leading up to Christmas by panicked parents, hastily passing late gifts to my nan through whispers as though she were a secretive drug lord.

There was no bureaucracy.