THAT’S that then. Another Christmas Day gone, and now we’re all lying there feeling stuffed and addled, our wallets and purses have been mothballed and we’re promising ourselves we’ll do it oh so differently next year…

We’ve eaten something like 10 million turkeys, bought four billion sprouts to go with them, splashed out £604 per household on presents (really? It seems way much more than that…), chucked £174 into supermarket coffers on food and drink, and frittered away £43 on cards, trees and decorations.

During December us Brits will have drunk 600 million units of alcohol, which is a staggering 41 per cent more than the monthly average. By the time the holiday period is over we’ll have chucked away two million turkeys and 74 million mince pies as well as hoyed out five million Christmas puds, which is a lot, given that we eat 25 million of the blasted things every year.

Seven out of ten dog owners will have given their pets a present, and if they’re anything like next door’s pooch that we look after each year, they’ll have destroyed/eaten/buried it in less than a minute. And as far as Santa believers are concerned, the jolly red giant will have visited 832 homes every second to deliver all his presents.

Four of us will have somehow broken our arms by getting over-zealous while cracker pulling, five of us will have been injured in accidents involving out of control Scalextric cars and three of us will have died testing whether a 9v battery works by touching the contacts with our tongue.

And if we’ve lived to tell the tale, more than 3.5 million of us will have escaped over-stuffed, under-cooked turkeys with a side order of the Queen’s Speech and headed abroad either for some winter sun – the Canaries, Egypt and Goa are the most popular destinations apparently – or to take to the slopes in ski resorts in the Alps, the US or Canada.

Talking of the Queen, nine million of us will have tuned in to see what’s been capturing her attention in 2014 – a certain toddler springs to mind - which is three million more than tuned in to her first Christmas broadcast in 1952, no doubt thanks to the likes of HRH’s You Tube channel.

Slumping in front of the telly apart, four million cars will have been on the roads on Christmas Eve with a further 4.6 million vehicles tootling about on Christmas Day picking up aunties and grannies and dropping them home again when they’ve dived a bit too hard into the sherry.

So, all things considered, pretty much situation normal then, for most of us. As ever, in the run up to Christmas Day there’s been too much hype, too much overkill, too much money spent, too much false bonhomie and when December 25 finally arrived it was maybe all a bit of an anti-climax if truth be known.

Well, I bet there are some who would have given anything for a bit of anti-climax this Christmas, who would have given their right arm to be bored rigid by rubbish Yuletide telly, who would have loved to have giggled and rolled their eyes at Auntie Mary getting her nose stuck far too far down a wine glass, who would have been delighted to sit down with family to dried out turkey, bullet sprouts and burned stuffing.

Instead, they were at best hospital visiting or at worst, being swamped by engulfing waves of grief as they mourned the people they loved who were snatched away from them in the run up to Christmas.

And I’m not just thinking of those families in Scotland who have had their festivities torn asunder by a runaway bin lorry in the middle of a packed shopping street.

Horrific as it undoubtedly was it seemed so much worse because it happened three days before Christmas. And to have that happen to a city barely a year after a helicopter dropped out of the sky and rained carnage on the city then, defies the worst of what naysayers could ever offer in the doom stakes.

Any family, whether from Glasgow or not, that suffers tragedy at Christmas will never see the festive season in the same way again. Death and destruction on any day of the year is bad enough, but to experience it now when all around is gay bonhomie and family time, is especially cruel.

So I hope your Christmas resulted in too much to eat, far too much booze, periods of boredom, rubbish presents and having to bite your tongue to keep the peace. Because then at least you had one…