I went to a wonderful show at the Royal Lyceum Edinburgh and this is why it made me cry

The Royal Lyceum made me cry, and it wasn’t because I didn’t get an ice-cream at the interval.

Instead, my tears were provoked by their Christmas production of Treasure Island.

I was there with my sister, nieces and nephews, as this magical event has become something of a family tradition. We haven’t missed a year since the kids were tots, and each show is threaded onto the next like a golden paper chain. Peter Pan, A Christmas Carol, The Snow Queen, Cinderella.

In their tiny years, the girls came to the theatre in sequin-covered frocks teamed with their winter woolly tights and they’d want to sit on our laps. Now they rock up all gallous in hoodies and leggings, in their high-ponytailed tween and teendom. They try to be insouciant, though I know they’re excited.

I’m sporting the same sparkly Christmas jumper that I unearth every year.

We always take a box of Maltesers. Sometimes two. I apologise to those who are irritated by the inevitable chocolate-based percussion sounds while they’re being passed along the line. Also, I know a few of us take more than the prescribed acceptable maximum of three per shot, but that’s okay, it’s Christmas.

I usually tap out anyway, when I feel that too many potentially germy hands have been rooting about in there. The others are welcome to the Maltesers petri dish.

As the family event is for over-fives, this is only the nephew’s second Royal Lyceum trip. At his age, it’s still super exciting for him to be out of the house after dinnertime.

He’s got his sparkly robin jumper on, and is still a bit nervous of potential baddies, especially as there are pirates - shiver me timbers - in this production. Last year, the Snow Queen and various witches gave him the heebie-jeebies and we almost had to leave.

This time, I’m recruited to put my hands over his ears, whenever Lean Jean Silver or Billy Bones sing Dead Man’s Chest, as Jim Hawkins and the crew set sail for the Orkney islands.

However, by the second half, he’s a bit less jumpy. He’ll have to get braver, if he wants to be part of the annual Soutar shindig.

As far as my tears go, it’s the singing at the end that always gets me. It’s not as if the folky music is even in minor keys - aka those heartstring-tugging tones, which are in almost all classic Christmas songs and can invoke a feeling of sadness and longing. Still, I undergo the same reaction every year.

In this case, it happened during a jolly and silly rendition of Merry Puffin Christmas. (You’ll understand if you go).

The lights, and bonhomie, having my family beside me. Clapping and singing along. I can feel a sense of nostalgia bubbling up. It’s that weird festive combination of happiness, ghosts of Christmas past, and wabi sabi.

All those paper chain links.

Years going past too quickly, sparkly outfits and woolly tights, all blending into a sob-inducing emotional soup.

However, I didn’t totally lose it. No way. I have my pride.

In this case, there was zero snot, but just a single renegade tear sliding from the outer corner of my eye.

I hoped that nobody saw, as I blotted it away with a shredded piece of tissue.

I’m not generally a crier, you see. Especially not in public.

The only thing that is guaranteed to make me bawl, is seeing someone else doing it.

They’re infectious, so stay away if you’re about to blub.

We’re not a sentimental or sobbing family, either. I’ve only seen my mum weep once, and it was out of frustration. My sister and I were little, and one of us sat on a special birthday cake that she was delivering to a friend. She’d put it on the front car seat, and ‘squish’.

The single time I saw my late dad cry was when we were on holiday in Spain and there was bullfighting on the telly.

Apart from Treasure Island, the most recent thing that got my tear ducts palpating was watching the Wild Robot at the cinema.

It was when Roz runs to the top of the hill to say goodbye to her gosling friend, who flies off but doesn’t look back. I peeked around. Nobody else was weeping, except me.

I let them flow, since it was almost total darkness.

Still, I don’t like this loss of emotional control over a migration, of all things.

As a stoic, this shouldn’t be happening.

I’m as tightly wrapped up as a pass-the-parcel present that’s been gaffer-taped closed, then stapled, before being encased in concrete and chucked into the Firth of Forth.

I blame this time of year. Our defences are low. Christmas greetings have more than one meaning.

It’s not just me, as I have a friend who says she cries at seven points in the festive film, Love Actually. While, other weepy lovers will swear by It’s a Wonderful Life.

As an anti-rom-com-er, who mainly watches horror films, I do wonder if I should try to enjoy the tears, in the privacy of my own home.

They are therapeutic, after all. Apparently, they contain stress hormones, which are secreted from the body when you cry.

Anyway, I don’t need to worry about all that.

Thanks to the Royal Lyceum, I’ve already done my annual Christmas greetings.

Treasure Island is on until January 4, www.lyceum.org.uk