Christmas comes early with two gloriously indulgent gourmet boxes sent from Lancashire
Northcote at Home. Book by 10am Friday for delivery the next week (northcote.com). Autumn gourmet box for two £90, classic menu for two £105, delivery £10
The doorbell rings and Christmas arrives early, enclosed in two sturdy, cardboard boxes. Unfortunately, it’s the worrying, anxious version of Christmas. You want everything to be perfect. You want the food to be an ethereal delight, even while a knot of anxiety tightens deep in your stomach, because there’s a chance it will instead be a fraught, angry mess of racist relatives and violated turkeys. This is where I am right now: trying to bring sparkly pools of light into a daily lockdown routine with all the texture of beige velour, while worrying that my efforts will merely emphasise the depths of our predicament.