There was a time when, like Christmas, Ulster Unionist Council meetings only came once a year. Since April 1998 we have had nine of them, all posing varying degrees of difficulty for David Trimble. On many of these occasions his political future was on the line but his record is first rate: nine gone, nine won, although at times very narrowly.
And remember, as a Co Antrim Yes delegate said on Saturday, "We have to keep winning all the time; they only have to be lucky once." But how many more to go before Mr Trimble can be allowed some relief and the Ulster Unionist Party can achieve some unity? Saturday in the Waterfront has ensured that the First Minister's holiday season should be a cheerful affair. As for the prospect of a united Ulster Unionist front, that would be beyond even Santa Claus's capabilities right now.
Last week a leading sceptic said that if David Trimble won 54 per cent of the council vote on Saturday the anti-Belfast Agreement brigade, to use a Northern phrase, would give his head some peace for a while. He was confident, however, that Saturday would be the First Minister's Armageddon.
Throughout last week on TV and in the local papers David Trimble and Jeffrey Donaldson slugged it out as the main advocates of the bitterly-divided factions. Mr Trimble held his nerve publicly but privately on the eve of the vote he was shaky. There are few sure bets in UUP politics.
So, to poll two percentage points over the 54 per cent target was a considerable achievement. David Trimble strengthened his hold on the Ulster Unionist leadership on Saturday. Jeffrey Donaldson saw his leadership ambitions damaged.
One Ulster Unionist who had absolutely no sympathy for the Lagan Valley MP was the Assembly chief whip Jim Wilson. "This was a dying ditch challenge for the leadership, and Jeffrey failed. How many times is he going to keep coming back?" For as long as it takes, was Mr Donaldson's effective response. He emphatically denies that this is about unseating Mr Trimble; rather it is about decommissioning and making the agreement more palatable to unionists.
At the last UUC meeting in June many sceptics urged him to challenge Mr Trimble. After the Westminster election losses what better time for a heave, they argued. But he resisted the temptation.
Yet, ultimately Mr Donaldson must have his eye on following in the footsteps of his mentor Lord Molyneaux. Being the chief representative for yet another unsuccessful tilt at Mr Trimble won't help his cause, at least in the short term.
At the UUC gathering there was a shift in focus from IRA arms to the "cold house for unionism" theme. For much of last week there were a number of manoeuvres from the antis to try to trap Mr Trimble into signing up to a "compromise" motion. Had that happened it would have been the First Minister effectively capitulating to the sceptics. But he didn't budge. Trust my tactics or trust Jeffrey's, was his message. They trusted Trimble's.
The initial No motion demanded sanctions against Sinn FΘin in the absence of IRA movement on arms by February 1st, and UUP withdrawal from the Executive if it was not completed by March 1st. But that was binned in favour of an alternative No motion from South Antrim MP David Burnside.
He proposed the re-establishment of the party review group on decommissioning to report to the UUC annual general meeting in March.
This sounds like a softening of the party position on arms as reviews are often a euphemism for pigeon-holing intractable problems.
The main emphasis in Mr Burnside's motion was clawing back the erosion of British symbolism in Northern Ireland. He demanded that the party should withdraw from the North-South element of the agreement if, by the end of February, the "Royal" wasn't restored to the police title, if the union flag did not fly over police stations on designated days, and if there was a further undermining of British symbolism in and outside courthouses.
All these issues, though, are in the gift of the British government and at the moment there is no indication it will alter its symbolically neutral course in Northern Ireland.
A comfortable 56 per cent majority at the urgings of Mr Trimble rejected the Burnside proposal. Instead, they adopted the Trimble motion which pledges to maintain the pressure for decommissioning but allows him tactical mastery in seeking to achieve that goal.
Some of his opponents have drifted away from the party, a few even joining the DUP. Mr Peter Robinson has an open invitation to the 40 per cent bloc who, probably more for personal than political reasons, will never stomach Mr Trimble as leader.
Yet for many the DUP is not their natural home. A long-standing anti-agreement campaigner said: "We're not really sure what to do next. We're going to need a period of reflection."
Mr Trimble wasn't crowing afterwards. He said that as long as the problems of decommissioning and the erosion of British symbolism remained so too would the party divisions remain. And nationalists should be mindful that there was substance to these concerns, he warned.