I had the horrifying thought yesterday that I haven’t spent a Christmas with my daughters since 2010. That’s worrying. This year was no exception. Here’s a look back on the last few Christmases.

25 December 2010 – I’d spent the previous couple of weeks in a hotel in Abidjan because of an intimidating phone call my wife received after one of my reports during what was the start of the Ivorian post-election crisis. I was sleeping in the office anyway because of the curfew, insecurity and an immense amount of work (I ended up doing 330+ separate news reports that month). The threat accelerated our plans to move house, which my industrious wife arranged during my absence. The BBC newsroom allowed me to have most of Christmas day off, and I traveled to our new house and had Christmas with the family. I can’t remember if I slept in my own bed that night.

25 December 2011 – My first holiday back in the UK since 2008. Work paid for my trip to spend Christmas with my parents. My wife and daughters stayed back in Abidjan and held a Christmas party for the family at our home, with 50 people sleeping there on Christmas Eve. That says more about how people were squeezed in than the size of the home.

25 December 2012 – I’d moved to a new job in Dubai the previous month, and my wife had stayed behind in Abidjan while the daughters finished school and I set-up our new life in the Middle East. Went to church in the morning, and then a British family invited me to their place for Christmas dinner, for which I will be forever grateful. In the evening I celebrated Christmas with a work colleague and her friends (I think everyone else was Muslim and had never celebrated Christmas before – they were confused by simple things like Christmas crackers).

25 December 2013 – My wife got her first visa for the UK, and we traveled back for two weeks to have a wonderful Christmas with my parents. It was poignant as the last Christmas we would enjoy together with my Dad.

25 December 2014 – My baby’s first Christmas and one month birthday. Wife and three daughters were together in Abidjan, I’m stuck in Freetown. Church in the morning, and then a dinner of sardines, boiled egg and instant noodles followed by custard creams. Worked in the afternoon and popped into the office in the evening, before finishing with a film.

25 December 2015…