What is your love language? My mother-in-law’s is a deluge of presents

After so long apart, my husband's family were keen to load us up with tokens of affection, from cutlery sets and face creams to a freestanding hammock

A cold hard coming we had of it, as TS Eliot would probably not have said of an hour in traffic looking for a Covid-testing clinic on a Hull industrial estate, a Storm Arwen-rocked ferry crossing, Rotterdam docks, lunch in a hypermarket burrito bar, then a rainy drive across three countries. But we three - not the magi, but my husband, younger son and me - finally made it from York to Normandy last weekend for a snatched pre-Christmas with his family, after two years punctuated by jerkily farcical video calls to my in-laws' foreheads, chins or ceiling. Covid anxiety, age and illness have kept these formerly fearless travellers confined to their native France.

We were not the ones bearing gifts, though. We had dinner at another relative's house, leaving a three-hour window to visit my in-laws on Sunday morning before we headed home. Undeterred by her 8.30-11.30am slot, my mother-in-law launched us straight into breakfast on arrival with various breads and pastries, fruit and several specially acquired Christmas jams. This had to be eaten quickly, because lunch - yes, lunch - preparations were already well under way. After a brief digestive interlude, we were hustled back to the table at 10.45am for scallops, roasted guinea fowl and cabbage, then camembert.

Emma Beddington is a freelance writer