Now the dust is settling after Christmas, I’m beginning to see what is left of my house from the carnage of the festive season. I won’t discuss mess (as my friends say I write all my columns about it and anyone who has ever shared a house/office with me will know that me and mess go hand in hand, it’s not new information) but I want to talk about ‘stuff’.

‘Stuff’ is what is bursting out of my house’s seams, out of drawers, from under beds and it seems we have just done a very good job of obtaining a lot more of it over Christmas. Our home is a not very big two-bedroom house (not the multimillion pound Chilworth mansion that I was once accused of living in by someone in the comments section online…oh trolls, I would rather live in Old Bursledon anyway), we don’t have the space for ‘stuff’. Especially not the old hairbrushes, broken toys and forests worth of paperwork that adorns all surfaces.

Greg and I didn’t go overboard with Christmas presents for the girls but when I saw them opened, I thought that they could have received half of them and still been happy, if not happier. I lulled myself into a false sense of security by buying bits and pieces in September so thought I was doing well, only to inspect my booty in the first week of December and realise there were some hair ties and a keyring each.

My first job of January is to go through the ‘stuff’ of these small people and explain that we are going to pass on the toys they no longer play with to other children who might like a turn with them living at their house. This is about teaching Dali and Bay that Christmas isn’t about just what you get; a horrible sight to witness on Christmas morning when kids are so overwhelmed with the number of gifts, they don’t even look what is inside before asking for the next. I want them to learn that giving is an enormous part of this time of year and not everyone is as lucky as them. But obviously, what I also mean is that I want the plastic tat out of my house so I can breath again and find places for all the LOL Dolls that are the new bane of my life.

* Stacey Heale has left her career as a fashion lecturer to focus on her two lively little girls and husband, Delays frontman Greg Gilbert, who was diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer in November 2016. She launched the viral campaign Give4Greg to raise funds for lifesaving treatment: gofundme.com/give4greg. You can read more at her blog, www.beneaththeweather.com