I am a late onset Christmas enthusiast but believe me, I have put my shoulder in over the decades (homemade treats, assisted by chaotic children, for every single school teacher). And I am in the extremely (very) fortunate position of having married a man who loves home comforts and contributes to them equally. Touch wood.

Was this just good fortune on my part? Not really. It became apparent pretty early on in the relationship (say, the late 1970s) that any household relying on my skills to keep things nice would have been disappointed.

Now we all know that on the whole, men don't get housework. Probably too hard. Vacuum cleaners are perplexing plus where do they live in the house?! Washing machines have more settings than chainsaws. And ovens? Goodness, getting the temperature setting just right is a real challenge. What is fan-assisted anyway?

But, as with everything, not all men. Gay couples split housework evenly. There must be something different in their brains that makes this possible!

True! New research from two New Zealand academics reveals that the same-sex couples in their study do something so extraordinary it should be bottled and sold. The couples "focused on achieving a sense of fairness and equality over time, rather than a strict 50-50 split".

I decided to do some anecdotal field work of my own. Usually I call on strangers but even I felt awkward (a feeling with which I am unfamiliar) calling people I've never spoken to before and asking about their relationship inclination and then asking that extremely personal question: who puts out the garbage at your place? So I asked people I actually know who could call and shout at me afterwards.

I've known Pia Rowe for ages. When I first met her she was straight with two kids. She's a senior ACT public servant having spent some time in academia. And she's a straight-out hoot, and now gay.

So I ask the main question for this time of year. Who organised Christmas?

Hooboy. Pia is Finnish and they don't go in for Chrismasteria (mind you, the most gorgeous Christmas decorations I own are from Finland. That was the year my beloved flew to Finland in the weeks before Christmas). Anyhow, she and her partner have been together for a year. They have six children. Six. Six under the age of 16. I'm exhausted just thinking about it.

In her previous relationship, Pia says she was the brains and her husband was the muscle. She still does a lot of the planning but her partner does the shopping. (Which is worse, shopping or planning? Hard to choose)

And it's the negotiating which makes things different in same-sex couples, say Alice Beban and Glenda Roberts of Massey University. Four top tips: keep changing things up, communicate, remember unpaid labour is valuable and do regular stocktakes of the unpaid load.

Why not try it yourself? ask Beban and Roberts. List all the tasks. Estimate the time it took.

"Then, have a heart-to-heart about who is doing what, how you both feel about it, and how it can be fairer."

MH said she read the NZ research: " It makes me appreciate my lovely partner S even more, and how much we discuss and deliberate together before we make decisions. I'm not sure why this would be so hard if one of us was a man."

Dear straight men, I dare you to do this.

Back to Pia. She told me a lot of complicated stuff about childcare and emotional labour but my favourite bit was a clear shift from her straight self to her gay self.

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"I realised that I had also been using some of the traditional gender norms to my advantage and now had to stop hiding under them," she said.

I assumed this would be recognising she hated cooking. But no.

"A good example of this is spiders. I don't like the big ones and they scare me, so I always acted quite feminine and got my ex to 'rescue' me."

Now she's moved in with her partner who is terrified of spiders and won't go anywhere near them.

"I had to learn to cope which for me meant that I give them cutesy names and talk to them while I carry them outside. We had only lived together for a month when I had to remove massive, hairy 'Bernadette' from our bathroom so that she could have a shower."

Susan, a lovely colleague from last century, says she had her partner would not have lasted decades together "if we hadn't agreed we needed a cleaner. It's one of only three things we row about."

I ask Andrew who does what. He says: "Depends who you ask. He does the laundry, cleaning and occasional dinner, I do the shopping, most meals and ironing. Apparently he does more than me."

Lesley, a wonder woman I've known for 45 years, says she and her partner have the easiest rhythm. "She is messy. I'm very neat. She likes gardening, I hate dirty hands. I cook. She used to wash up for Stephanie Alexander so she is in charge of dishwasher. I make beds. She likes doing the washing. We don't argue we just respect each other and happily co-exist. Her bedroom looks like a giant shook out their handbag. Mine looks like an IKEA display. No one irons. I wipe up the rings on tables from cups and glasses. She brings me breakfast in bed. It seems to have worked for, crikey, 38 years."

In the words of Pia Rowe who has seen both sides of dealing with spiders:" While it's absolutely more equitable to not have gendered categories and norms and everything is up for negotiation, it also can backfire when everything is up for negotiation."

Better than no-gotiation. Now, who's doing the Christmas Day wash-up?