I know what you’re thinking. It’s probably something along the lines of: “Christmas is weeks away! And don’t we have more pressing matters to deal with right now?!”

I get it. But we already know that the government isn’t at all opposed to announcing a last-minute lockdown the night before a major religious holiday: Leicester was, as you’ll no doubt recall, placed into an extended lockdown on 29 June, just hours before Eid al-Adha.

Speaking from a purely selfish POV, too, my sister is an NHS nurse, my nan is in the ‘at risk’ category, and my dad is currently working abroad – which means that even the merest whisper of a lockdown extension casts serious doubt over the likelihood I’ll be spending 25 December with all of my family.

Plus, it’s not exactly a whisper anymore, anyway. It’s MPs telling The Times that it will be “very difficult” to end the lockdown if deaths and hospital admissions are still rising. It’s the government’s scientific advisors saying that even if restrictions are briefly relaxed, Christmas will not be normal. It’s Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer telling the BBC there will “be no effective exit on 2 December unless the government uses this time to fix test, trace and isolate”.

And it’s the all-too-authoritative cadence of a medical expert explaining that, without lockdown or social restrictions, a traditional Christmas will pose a “high risk” scenario.

Christmas lockdown: how will restrictions impact Christmas 2020?