1.   Each year the whole family spends Christmas together.

2.   Middle-class families typically spend a lifetime saving, either by investing in securities or by building small businesses.

3.   The Hawkins family this summer spent four weeks on Vancouver Island, on the west coast of Canada.

4.   The price of bread cereals, on which labouring families spent a vast proportion of their wages, fluctuated wildly.

5.   The Sheldon family have spent the past month wondering why.

6.   Almost every year the family spends two weeks in Orlando.

7.   And families are spending more time in the kitchen, so much so that desk areas are being added on.

8.   And in a twist that even state officials acknowledge is odd, the program may have actually increased the time that some families spend on welfare.

9.   And even in New England, McCain had to yield Maine, where the Bush family has spent summers for generations.