This year, Chanukkah and Christmas are nicely in sync, and it is the season for parties. While many people, including The Husband, develop a spring in their step at the prospect, I am not at all a party animal. If I were, I would be a party dormouse, trying to nap quietly in a corner while hoping someone would turn down the music and send all those noisy guests back home.

It’s not simply that I’m getting older, because even in my early twenties, I used to secrete a book in my bag when I went to a party in case I got bored.

It never actually came to it that I had to hide out in a back bedroom and start reading; the book was my security blanket, a concealed source of solace, knowing I could turn to it if I needed to. It was years before I realised that, of course, if a party was that boring, I could simply make a discreet exit instead.

But it is certainly worse now that I’m older. Why would I want to stand up all evening? Why can’t I have a whole plate of proper food to myself rather than having to hunt down a server with a platter of canapés as if engaged in an unwanted game of hide and seek?

Why, after over two hours, have I managed to waylay a waiter only three times? First a “mushroom jkjdjzxflkjlkjl” (couldn’t hear what it was).

Too big to eat in a single mouthful, when I attempt a cautious bite, morsels of it hurl themselves off the side of the tuile-like base to end their days on the hitherto perfect suede of my black boots.

Then a “truffle something-something”.

Two coal-like lumps of black choux pastry, not filled but sandwiched together with something that looks like vanilla buttercream but isn’t. Not quite unpleasant enough to spit out discreetly into my napkin, it is nonetheless borderline horrid.

And finally a pig in blanket (if strictly kosher, please look away now).

I’ve not had one of these for ages as both Husband and Teen, though not properly kosher, do not eat treif. They are only nice if very, very well cooked, with both cocktail sausage and its bacon blanket truly crispy, but I am too hungry to notice. This one is underdone and will deter me from pork sausages for at least another year.

Remember social distancing? When we all bent over backwards (often literally) to allow each other a generous amount of space? I remember going for a walk on the Heath and seeing a man wearing a huge hoop suspended horizontally by cords from his shoulders, to form a clear no-go zone around him.

Ah, golden days. Now, with the music turned up too loudly, the mostly middle-aged guests have no option but to invade each other’s personal space in order to hear at all. I really, really don’t want to catch Covid so close to our planned family gatherings.

Discreetly, I start to sidle backwards from the other person. She leans in closer. I retreat, she steps forwards, until I am standing right in the floor-length curtains of the window behind me. One more small step and I’ll be behind them, peeping out from their folds like a child watching the grown-ups.

Tugging against my desire for distance is the problem of my hearing. Put me in a room with a hard floor, over-loud music and a lot of drunk people talking at the tops of their voices, and I pretty much have to lip-read.

This has the disconcerting effect that I have to pay such close attention to the other person’s mouth that it must seem as if I am about to lean in for a prolonged kiss.

At the second party in the same week, the canapés have been ordered straight from Treif Central, leaving both Husband and Teen quite disgruntled (and even I draw the line at anything containing crab).

“They know I don’t eat pork or shellfish,” moans the Husband. I point out that it’s not realistic to expect your hosts to accommodate every guest’s individual requirements and we are party-going in an area of London where Jews are a rarity, so probably no one else cares.

He elbows a baying mob of vegetarians out of the way to reach for the last goat’s cheese filo cup like a starving man, even though I did warn him he might want to eat beforehand. In an ideal world, his preferred canapes would be: hot mini-latkes, beef cocktail-size viennas, and tiny cups of chicken soup, none of which get a look-in at Christmas parties.

On the way back, tired from all the standing, hoarse from all the shouting, and yearning for bed, I breathe a sigh of relief. Thank God that’s all done for another year. Chag Sameach!

clairecalman.co.uk