NON-WORKINGMONKEY: I start having a go on Christmas

Come on Christmas!! Yes, it is that speshul time of year again: time for lights, decorations, trees etc; putting out a mince pie for Father Christmas and a carrot for Rudolf; praying and praying that this year there will be a pony and/or puppy at the end of the bed; pretending you cannot see Monkeymother coming in with the stockings; eating chocolate money at 5am then a tangerine to balance it out; discouraging Monkeymother from inserting the 'business end' of the turkey over Monkeyfather's head; hiding Monkeyfather's Bailey's (3 types) in the shed, etc.

But this year it will be different. Yes. "Christmas 2009" will be tinged with a hint of the strange and a soupçon of the unfamiliar, for this will be first year in forty (40) years that I have not been with Monkeymother and Monkeyfather on Christmas Day. I will instead be in Canada with the French-Canadian veterinary research pathologist to whom I am married by law, a 14lb turkey, a ham, 1.28kg of Bendicks Bittermints* and Canada's version of The Queen having a speech.

It will be magnificent, of that I am convinced, and to make it even better, on Boxing Day some friends are coming from Toronto (words I never thought I would say!). There will be two extra ladies, two extra men, a baby and a gigantic dog the size of a Shetland pony and we will spend 5 days by the fire drinking beer, eating turkey pie and watching "Colin and Justin's Home Heist" on BBC Canada.

But I will not be allowed to forget the simple, gurning faces of Monkeymother and Monkeyfather, for last year they gave me a special and privit Christmas present that I have not, until now, felt able to share with you, dear readers. But now is the time - for today, yes today, the knitted monkey in a fez (a reproduction of my Victorian ancestor, Private-Income Monkey) has been taken out of his special place on our bedhead, and put up the top of our Canadian christmas tree**.

Here he is, having a climb and a little look around while he waits for the rest of the 'tree decorations' to be added, including a unicorn, over 1.2m gingerbread stars, and a white rubber stress-relieving sheep.