I MADE the mistake of suggesting that maybe this year we could forget leaving the mince pie, glass of milk and carrot by the fireplace on Christmas Eve.

The 17-year-old looked at me as if I had just slaughtered a much-loved, jolly old white haired man with my bare hands: “Can’t you just pretend it’s real? You’re spoiling it for us all now.”

When our children are small, we all establish our own little Christmas rituals. But there comes a time, many years down the line, when you do begin to question your sanity.

One friend, whose daughters are now in their early twenties, is still dipping the soles of a pair of wellington boots in icing sugar so that they wake up to a trail of footprints across the living room carpet on Christmas morning.

But this year, their new puppy had licked them all away before they woke: “Perhaps it’s time to stop now,” she said.

This is the first year we haven’t gone for a drive in the deer park on Christmas Eve night, to see if we could spot Rudolph. After some debate, we settled on a daytime walk instead.

I had wondered if the older boys, now in their early to mid-twenties, could do without the stockings at the end of their beds this year. But this proposal was met with a mixture of horror and disbelief.

And so, as usual, I traipsed round the shops, wasting money on a load of chocolate coins, selection boxes and novelty tat that no one really wants.

When they were small, I would creep into their rooms after they’d gone to sleep and leave the stockings at the end of their beds. But it’s not quite the same now that they go to bed about three hours after me, after getting in from the pub.

We no longer have any angelic little bright-eyed cherubs, leaping out of bed in the early hours, bursting into our bedroom to show us the pop guns and torches Santa has left in their stockings. Our bleary-eyed, hungover twenty-somethings are not quite as enthusiastic at 6am.

But, give them a few hours and they still enjoy rushing downstairs into the living room together to see what Santa has left them.

There was some consternation this time, because, for the first time in 20 years, I had changed all the furniture in the room around.

Each of the boys has a particular sofa or chair that their presents are always left on. And you mess around with Christmas traditions at your peril. So were their gifts going to be on their original item of furniture, or in the original location in the room?

The boys had a heated debate on their WhatsApp group. Forget the Brexit vote and Trump’s election victory. Their mum was throwing their world into disarray.

In years gone by, I used to be hiding behind the sofa with a video camera to capture the scene on film. But I now appreciate the lie-in more and content myself with listening to the particularly loud rousing cheers and whoops of delight coming from downstairs, which has become a Christmas tradition in itself.

I wonder if there will be a natural cut-off point, when the stockings and the rest of the Santa charades must surely come to an end. For, at times, in a house full of disbelievers, you do begin to question who you are actually doing it for.

I woke up at about 1.30am this Christmas morning, and realised I’d forgotten to read the boys ‘The Night Before Christmas’ on Christmas Eve. It’s something I’ve done, every year, without fail, since they were babies.

Since they’d not long gone to bed, I grabbed the book and burst into their bedrooms: “Sorry I forgot. Would you like me to read it to you now boys?”

Irritated and bleary-eyed, they told me to go away.

“Fine,” I said, stomping back to my bedroom, slightly miffed because, for the first time, I had missed out on this particular maternal ritual.

But at least it did partly answer my question: “Who am I actually doing it for?”