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This Christmas, Michelle Hanson's got to get her head round her mother's secret of the perfect turkey stuffing - it may be her Last Chance...

We’ve had a few tough weeks in the run up to Christmas, bracing ourselves for the annual burst of deeply horrible behaviour. And it’s particularly important that Christmas is not horrible this year, because my Mother is ninety-four and this may easily be her Last Christmas. This is her Seventh Last Christmas and we want it to be heavenly – not a repeat of her Fourth Last Christmas, when she and Daughter fell out over the size of the tree. Daughter wanted a huge one, my Mother wanted a small bunch of decorative twigs. Naturally they fell out and had a scream.

"This is my Last Christmas," roared my Mother, "and SHE’S spoilt it!" Everyone ran and wept in separate rooms. We often do this on Last Christmases. The presents are another flash point. What does one buy someone for her last Christmas? What is the point of extravagant presents, my mother feels, if she may not be around for long enough to use them? Then they will have been a complete, and utter waste of money. What is the point of a lovely new nighties? Or thermal vest, or snazzy new knickers, or fluffy slippers? She may as well just wear the old raggedy ones out. She probably won’t even have time to use up the new soaps and perfumes and she can’t eat the chocolates, she’ll get fat.

But what if we don’t buy her anything? Then we’ll be sitting round the tree tearing open our presents, and my mother will be sitting there in her threadbare clothing, with nothing to unwrap, thinking we don’t love her anymore. It doesn’t bear thinking about, so we’ve bought the presents anyway and we’re going to try not to have a row over them, like we did on the Fifth Last Christmas, when Daughter bought me some lovely glass goblets. One of them was broken and my mother had a shout at the Daughter for wasting her money on breakables, and we all ran and cried in our rooms, as usual.

But this year we’re trying to keep it all together and save our strength for the big event: cooking the turkey. The tree tension and the present palaver are nothing compared to the turkey performance. Because my mother is in charge of the turkey. She is the expert, her stuffing is exquisite, only she can make it properly, I still haven’t learnt how to do it, and of course, this may be my Last Chance. If I and the Daughter don’t pay attention this time, then this will be the last time anyone ever eats my mother’s fabulous chestnut, mushroom, bacon, parsley, breadcrumbs and lemon stuffing.

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