Browsing property websites is a Christmas Day tradition with me — along with ordering everyone out of the kitchen and smashing the meat thermometer. Last year, I was one of the 1.5m people who excused themselves from festivities and logged on to Rightmove. Like the shepherds at the nativity, we were just the first on the scene. Between Christmas Day and January 2, Rightmove traffic was up 231 per cent.

For many, I suspect the festive urge to scroll through pictures of other people’s houses is brought on by a confrontation with the inescapable truth. We look around the lunch table — teenager squeezed up against the wall, granny sinking in a deck chair — and think, we’re going to need a bigger place. 

The Yuletide traffic surge is a UK property market indicator. “If the phones don’t start ringing in the weeks after Christmas, then something is wrong,” says Roarie Scarisbrick, a buying agent at Property Vision.