Batten down the hatches, the Frenemies are coming. And they're gonna cost you.

They'll be calling at your house this Christmas and they will all but knock it down.

Okay. I promised not to mention the C-word, but if I don't I'll be the only person outside Greenland not to. It just slips out unnoticed in every sentence like a well-worn swear word from a navvie.

Anyway back to the Frenemies. The clever ones among you will by now have worked out that they are friends who are really your enemies. They and their children go on a £1 billion spree of destruction in our homes every year.

They break more than 1.3 million pieces of furniture, garden ornaments and other items of sentimental value.

The name has been dreamed up by Halifax Home Insurance, it seems, because their research shows that more than 14 million Britons have recorded damage by pals and their children in the past five years.

As soon as I saw this amazing research, I got to thinking back. Yes, I've been a victim of Frenemies. Have you?

We had a garden party in the summer and dozens of people glugged away the day and evening. We loved it - apart from watching helplessly and with sick smiles giving us face ache - as little bits of alcoholic vandalism were incurred on our lovely home and garden. One chap fell drunk into our prized rose bushes, hurting all the poor thorns with his face and body. I was relieved to see it was his blood and not that of my roses. Another reveller repeatedly bounced off the patio door because he could not absorb the fact that it was shut.

My best hardwood recliner - like a barrow on wheels - splintered to smithereens with a sickening crash as too many people decided to use it as a bench. Perhaps they were trying to bring an end to the record snog of the married couple (though not to each other) who had been there moments earlier.

We'd watched in horror as a tipsy guest rocked recklessly on the back legs of a director's chair until it, too, collapsed in pieces. It was my chair being wrecked but I did find his shocked face funny.

The day after is always the time for taking stock. You come down bleary-eyed and start to survey the wreckage. Broken glasses are not a problem, unless the shards are in the grass and it restricts your barefoot frolics.

And some people are very inventive in converting ordinary outdoor objects into ash trays. We found a birdbox full of fag ends. Now we have bluetits with a severe nicotine addiction.

All in all, we escaped quite lightly. It's surprising what you can do with a bit of adhesive, lots of screws and a lick of paint.

But - some people never learn - we are doing it all again this Yuletide, in the house not the garden. And I'm thinking that in view of these new findings on Frenemies, I ought to start packing things away.

We'll roll up the carpets, hide the Van Goghs, cocoon the Ming vases and allow only plastic glasses. There'll be a huge sand bucket for an ashtray and we'll bring in the unbreakable plastic garden chairs. Sounds cosy, doesn't it?

It's either that or we cancel Christmas and become Frenemies ourselves.

I know it's supposed to be the season of goodwill to all men (and women), but when I get invited back to the home of the chap who kept warm at our garden party by throwing logs on my brand new (now hopelessly warped) barbecue, I'll be taking a bottle - and my chainsaw!

Updated: 09:22 Tuesday, December 06, 2005