Only now that I'm a mum can I fully understand the terrible pressure parents feel buying presents for their kids. My mum had four children plus all of the extended family and she not only had to feed us all but she bought presents for everyone, too.
I was something of a surprise to my parents. My mum, Margaret, was 42 when she had me and had been told she couldn't have children. So when she went to the doctors, they thought she had an ovarian cyst. And it was me!
My mum had 14 pregnancies - but only four of us survived. We had a little sister born for a few days and she died. There had to be a funeral.
Mum and I have always been close. Her adoptive parents died when she was 18, and she doesn't have any other kids, so I'm her only family. She lives life to the full, and I envy her vitality. She has pink hair and is a younger spirit than me.
Mum loves me being famous! She is so excited and proud, as she had me so young and couldn't support me, so I am living her dream, it's sweeter for both of us. It's her 40th birthday soon and I'm going to buy her 40 presents.
For a few years, we lived with our grandmother in Kingston, and I remember watching the other kids with their mums and just feeling really jealous. I didn't fully understand what my mum was doing for us. I just knew that she was gone. My grandma was amazing, but everybody wants their mum at that age.
I knew nothing about my mum's family. Her parents were dead by the time she was 14. She was brought up by two aunts, and she only ever met one uncle.
Mum was a teacher before I was born, but never worked after she had kids. She was too busy looking after us and making kedgeree.
When I was eight, my mum found me humming to myself and scribbling on a scrap of paper. When she asked me what I was doing, I got shy. I was writing a Christmas song, and I had never shared my music with anyone before. Reluctantly, I sang it for her... and she loved it. Of course she did - she's my mum.
My mum was my inspiration. As cliche as that sounds, she was the reason that we started. She chose cycling to lose weight. I was only eight at the time, so I just followed what my mum did.
Mum didn't have shoes. She was the eldest of 10 kids, and some nights they went without food. That's why, from a young age, I wanted to work hard and change that cycle, to provide not only for my parents but my siblings, too.
Both of my parents had a change of career. My mum was a nurse, and now she's a college lecturer.
For me, Christmas was always about presents. As a child, we each had an allotted place in the sitting room for the ceremonial unwrapping and mine was perched beside the telly on a Moroccan pouffe. We would watch our mum with bated breath as she divided up the gifts.
I have never had other kids in the house... I had a huge collection of marbles, and they all had names, which I think concerned my parents. I used to go and sweep outside and talk to myself, and my mum's friends would be over and say, 'Do you realise she is talking to herself?'
I didn't see my mum Julia for a few years - she was very young when she married my dad and had me, and when they parted I lived with my dad and my other 'mum,' his wife Diane.
My mum was an actor until she started having children. I was the first child, so in a way I was the end of her acting career, which hopefully she's forgiven me for. She's still watches my show every week. It's funny because I didn't grow up in a household that felt like a theatrical household. My dad did a normal job and my mum had given up. But when I decided to try and do it - it wasn't the most alien concept.
My dad was a labourer and my mum had exactly the same job as Noel Gallagher's mum - she was a dinner lady at our local school. Everyone comes over from Ireland and they get the same jobs.