I RECKON there are 354 shopping days left to Christmas.

So before we start panic buying, why don't we just forget the whole thing for a few weeks and let's all kiss and make up.

It's supposed to be a time of goodwill and relaxation, but the festive period is more likely a time of stress and fraught nerves, according to newly-published research.

Many hit the bottle, light up a cigarette or eat themselves stupid in an effort to stave off the Yuletide anger and depression.

It's all come out in a survey carried out by the store chain, Kwik Save. Which got me thinking, why would the purveyors of food and drink do a survey on angry people and falling-out families?

It seems that at this time of year, families are rent asunder. And they split up a lot as well.

All those people who can no longer relate rush off to Relate for a marriage patch. But I got to thinking again: Who do marriage guidance counsellors go to when their relationships are on the rocks? And do dentists have trouble finding a dentist?

So why is it always at Christmas? Perhaps it's because people have fought their way through all the angry shopping crowds, have got all excited and then felt let down when their Christmas stocking contained only socks.

Or maybe it's the fact that families spend so much time together when they are not used to such rich closeness. We were lucky - I spent most of Christmas at work.

But who wants to sit and watch their partner snore and dribble saliva on the sofa all afternoon? And wouldn't you like to get your hands on the person who bought young Jimmy a drum kit for Christmas?

According to Kwik Save's strange survey, Christmas Eve is the most daunting time for people, but New Year's Eve is the time which really sends the blood pressure soaring. All that linking arms, kissie-kissie and false bonhomie as you manage to last the course till midnight.

But it's not a modern phenomenon, you know. One of my school pals once told me the story of how his parents had not spoken for 25 years because his mum bought dad a gold watch for Christmas when he really wanted a new bike. He threw the watch in the river.

The parents would communicate through their children - "ask your dad what he wants for tea" - and spend their endless evenings in separate rooms.

I was young and nave then, so I did not wonder where my 14-year-old pal - and his younger sister - had come from if his parents had not spoken for a quarter of a century!

So anyway, when my friend used to come to call for me to go out with the gang, he would settle in a chair, get talking to my marginally less-dysfunctional mum and dad, and then stay with them for the evening while I went out. Poor lad killed himself some years later and I'll never know whether it was my parents or his who drove him to it.

I know of a family which has fallen out because grandma - wrongly - disapproves of the way her daughter is bringing up her own child. Grandparents came bearing gifts at Christmas but it was a cool affair and the rift is, sadly, not healed.

Then, of course, there is the ex-couple of our acquaintance who were happily married for many years until one Christmas Eve she came home early from a shopping expedition and found her fireman husband prancing around the lounge in her full range of underwear. I suppose that no matter how much the girls like them, uniforms can get to be monotonous day in, day out.

Oh well, enough of this gloom. We have our summer holidays to look forward to, all that time together to heal the wounds of Christmas.

Which got me thinking again: What's happened to all the summer holiday adverts which used to swamp the telly as soon as Christmas Day came?

Anyway, holidays. Never mind the weeks of slimming down to fit into that bikini, flight delays, passport control, strip searches at airport security. Never mind having to work out how many yen to the dinar, sunburn, mosquito bites and avoiding the great taxi rip-off. It'll be a hoot. Honest.

Updated: 10:16 Tuesday, January 03, 2006