When Tom and I were engaged, we did some marriage preparation that included looking at values and traditions from our family of origin. We thought we were quite similar and certainly didn’t experience any nasty surprises – until we celebrated our first Christmas together.

Presents are opened in a frenzied flurry as soon as you wake up, right? Er, no - you wait until after lunch and open them with coffee. Stockings are hung by the fireplace? No, we never had one growing up in a modern house, so we put them at the end of our beds. And food, always turkey of course… NOT. Turkey is too dry, so we would have goose.

The fact is, we know that the festive time of year is loaded with pressure and expectations and fraught with family traditions and hang-ons from times past. It took Tom and I several years to establish new traditions that worked for us and our family.

Now, imagine you are a child or young person living in a home that's not your home of origin. You have to navigate all of this, and so much more.

Our children can find routines and predictability extremely helpful in feeling safe and secure. Yet, this season is anything but predictable. There are so many disruptions to the normal school rhythm with pantomime trips, carol concerts, rehearsals, Christmas jumper days, Christmas fayres, Christmas party day, Christmas dinner day, film day, end of year music concerts, Christmas card competition, dress up day, dress down day - the list is inexhaustible, and would unsettle any child, but particularly one who is coping with so much more.

We find that preparation is key, so offering a visual chart on the kitchen wall helps them to make sense of all the different things going on. But in reality, even with this, it can be overwhelming for them and it is understandable that children will be experiencing increased anxiety, which may well look like bad behaviour or unwillingness to engage.

With our children, we try to keep things really simple. If they are used to eating cheerios for breakfast, they'll do the same on Christmas Day! It would be easy to follow the crowd and insist on smoked salmon bagels or some other ‘treat’ on Christmas morning, but this isn’t necessarily helpful for them. If they normally eat lunch at midday (we do), we can’t expect children to suddenly cope with waiting three more hours for a glorious roast, that – let's face it – will be eaten in seven minutes like every other meal (despite the hours of preparation you put into it). And we’ll just have a chicken if that's what everyone will eat.

And then there’s presents. Our children can't always cope with the immense build-up. It needs diffusing somewhere or else it's all too overwhelming. We usually open just a few presents at a time throughout the day, and I usually hide a few for Boxing Day and the day after to soften the comedown.

The notion of being ‘naughty or nice’ in order to be worthy of presents, I find hugely problematic. We all know how it goes:

He's making a list and checking it twice,

Gonna find out who's naughty and nice – Santa Claus is coming to town.

He sees you when you're sleeping, he knows when you're awake,

He knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness’ sake!

The immense pressure put on children to 'behave' in order to receive good gifts is tough when they often don't understand why they behave the way they do. Well-meaning strangers asking if my children have been ‘good’ this year... this year?! What society sees as 'good' is simplistic and unhelpful, negating the things our children have experienced, what they're feeling and what they're communicating. We share gifts with the people we love because we love them - it's not something that's conditional, depending on behaviour.

'Elf on the shelf' should stay there, gathering dust - in my opinion.

The concept of someone constantly spying on you to be ‘good’ and reporting back to Father Christmas can be frightening and can push anxiety levels right up. Even the thought that there is an Elf moving around at night in your home could be a trigger – likewise, with Father Christmas (an unknown man) coming into the house at night.

We’ve decided to create new boundaries for where Santa will leave presents. It's always somewhere like the shed or garage, where they can be collected when the children are ready for them.

All in all, we have learned to reduce or remove expectations and obligations and do things in the way that they need. Because we love them. This isn’t always easy, but with God’s grace as our inspiration and His help as our support, we do what we can.

In Ephesians 2 we read:

For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God – not by works, so that no one can boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)

Our heart is to ensure that our children can know and believe that nothing they do will ever separate them from our love, and that they will receive good things whatever behaviour they present us with.