To travel over Yule is to take advantage of “free holiday”, a dead time when no one actually notices whether one is working or not. The truly sensible would jump ship around December 15 to re-emerge mid-January, and I swear not a colleague would catch on. If they did, they’d merely follow suit, a collective exodus ensuing. A survey from 2017 found that a third of Britons long to quit the country as we approach the great glittering ghastliness. The obvious response being: only a third?

My own Christougenniatikophobia (fear of Christmas) has found us in Sicily, France, Germany and Holland on Christmas Day. In Syracuse, in 2015, we strolled about Ortygia, went for a pasta lunch, then took coffee and cannoli outside its magnificent Doric temple-turned-cathedral, sporting sunglasses against the winter sun. “What I want to know is, where do you fit in?” asked a local youth. “Are you film stars?” We felt like it. Next morning, we walked to the Paolo Orsi Archaeological Museum and its surrounding archaeological park, a place of rather more wonder than the Boxing Day sales.

In Paris, we rented an Airbnb near Notre-Dame, waking to the sound of its bells. On the day itself, Terence woke me with tiny cream cakes from the local bakery, made lunch, then we sauntered to the Palais Garnier to see the not remotely festive Iphigénie en Tauride, almost as if it were a day on which we might expect to enjoy ourselves. Amsterdam was packed with art and architecture, while even Terence’s “Remnants of the Reich” East Berlin walking tour was jollier than trad British Christmas.

This year, the plan was to return to gay Paris, in an arrondissement new to us: the IXe, or Opéra itself. Aiming to be more in the mode of the Instagram account Parisiens in Paris than the dread Emily, Terence would have wallowed in his Haussmann obsession, I in Handel’s Alcina. Alas, that option is no longer available to us, and we will be grounded like so many thwarted Francophiles.

I am consoling myself with the thought that, being at home while everyone imagines us to be away, might make for the most relaxing Yule of all. No PCR or lateral flow tests, no form-filling, and no fears of the rules changing while we are en route. Instead, a secret non-celebration full of food, fire and dog-walking. Joyeux Noël, wherever you choose to be.