A reindeer's-eye-view of our Christmas dinner, with a celebratory clinking of glasses to start the feast. And of course, we thought we'd leave the poignant empty chair to symbolize our loss of Uncle Ian, who used to regularly grace our Christmas dinner table with his presence (and often a fine stilton too). But also, as Alice suggested, the empty chair is also to say a spare chair always awaits visitors and you are always welcome to join us.

The pedantics among you will wonder how we got the paper hats before we pulled our crackers, but that's obvious just part of the enigma... Our attempts at superimposing the reflections of each of our faces in the white plate was abandoned when Helen observed that it looked like we were about to dine on our own souls. Too weird to put on a holiday card, anyway.

And how did we get the aerial photography?

The photo gantry was a death-defying stepladder. No fathers were harmed during the making of this card. But we did break a couple of glasses and at one point tipped a glass of wine all over the props.

And having to cook a turkey in late November was all so... American!