Spending Christmas in the sun? Oh grow up.

Four Christmases is currently riding high at the UK box office, despite unanimously awful reviews. It is lovable tinsel-bobbins with Reece’N’Vince (oh come on they don’t need surnames) as reluctant responsibility-phobe yuppies forced into spending the Haaaalidays with their four sets of whacky parents when plans to escape to Fiji are scuppered. Cue vomiting babies, wrestling brothers, horny grandmas and some set “comedy” involving a satellite dish. Plus a bit of actual funny stuff that is 100% reliant on Vince’s trump card, the “sounds improvised but is clearly scripted you’re money baby” comedy rants, and a bit of “this is my sad face” from Reece when she, like, totally realises that she, like, totally wants a family not just holidays in Fiji.

As a movie, it is mind-numbingly lovable. The best way to approach it as less of a film and more of a little socially-acceptable Valium that you can take in public without worrying that you will try and take a nap against a lamp post or accidentally wee in the corner of Marks and Spencers. Four Christmases is festive relief for those of us who have no Valium. As a film it is weirdly relaxing and very popular despite the fact that it is such a clunker. Why? Because negotiating where you are going to spend Christmas as a couple is something of an albatross around the neck for most, even for couples without families from hell. Everyone has to do it and sharing your Christmas is, in my mind, evidence of a proper Grown Up Relationship (which possibly explains why I have never done it). The festive compromise you reach as a couple says a lot about your relationship and each version has it’s own set of pitfalls. Bring your other half home for Christmas, risk exposing them (and yourself) to childhood revelations from your evil sisters or spending the whole day worrying that someone from either side is making a tit of themselves in a fit of post-turkey over-familiarity. Go to their house and risk exposing yourself to whole new social order of Family Traditions that are, frankly, a minefield of dos and don’ts (“oh I see, you all get into bed together to open presents…”)

As a decision it is a delicate negotiation and Reece’N’Vince’s solution to lie to their family and take tropical holidays every Christmas is, of course, not the handy solution to having to sleep on a sofa bed at your future in-laws that they would first have us believe. Oh no no no. If you are in a couple, especially a fledgling serious couple (like one that goes on dates to the movies on a Friday night, see where I am going there?), then sorting out the logistics of Christmas Day involves asking questions of your relationship like, “are we ready to spend Christmas together?” or worse “where is this relationship going?”, which is exactly where Reece’N’Vince end up after about 75 minutes of general festive comedy japes. To sack both sets of family Christmases (and step-families and father’s new girlfriends and sibling’s bloody in-laws blah blah) altogether for a Pina Colada Christmas Day, is simply avoiding asking those pesky questions and in effect, avoiding dealing with commitment issues and not being a grown up whilst getting a tan. And that is fine by me.