in response to The Argument I Have With My Father Every Christmas

The Argument I Have With My Daughter Every Christmas

2 points · October 2026

I am the father in a piece on this site, or one very like him. I recognised the gravy. I want to answer from my side of the table.

She thinks I think she left. I do not think she left. I think she went, which is what children do, and I am glad, and I have never found the sentence that says I am glad you went without also saying and I am still here, which she hears as a complaint.

The argument about the government is my fault. I start it. I start it because it is a subject on which she knows more than me and I want to hear her know more than me, and the only way I have found to make her talk for ten minutes is to be wrong about something in front of her.

The washing up is her mother's idea. Her mother is right about most things. I let her have the gravy this year and my daughter looked at me as though I had died, so next year I am taking it back.