Where will you spend Christmas? With your parents? Your in-laws? Your children? Why is it so complicated? | Adrian Chiles

So much guilt, so much admin ... Life is far easier when you're a kid and don't have to worry about where you'll be pulling crackers

Who is going to be where and with whom over Christmas? At either end of our lives, things become simpler because the decision tends to be made for us. It's in midlife when the arrangements are at peak complexity. In your early days, if - and it's a big if - you're not split between two parents, then you have Christmas at home or, in a foretaste of tricky stuff to come, at one or other set of grandparents. Then you grow up and, should you partner up with someone, there will have to be a discussion as to whose family you go to. Throw children into the mix and the pressure ratchets up a notch or two. Because Christmas is all about the children, as we established when we were children ourselves, therefore everyone's preferred option is to be with the bairns, and they can't be everywhere.

Come midlife, you have adult children - and possibly their children! - to think about as well as your aged parents. Throw in a divorce or two in one or more of these generations and it all gets positively byzantine. There are your siblings, too, and their families to factor into your plans. Or you may be factored into their plans. Competing plans may clash, causing the logistics computer in your brain to crash. A reboot and rethink will be necessary.

Adrian Chiles is a broadcaster, writer and Guardian columnist