Sergeant Mick McCrann said Christmas Day was traditionally busy for police with tension sometimes erupting around the dinner table.

"It's certainly a busy time of year for us because often it's that once or twice a year meeting of families and when alcohol is involved, people's tolerance of each other is lowered and they become less tolerant," he said.

"Often alcohol is involved.

"So we ask people to remember, in the spirit of Christmas, to be tolerant of each other."

Sergeant McCrann has his fingers crossed there are no family violence incidents this Christmas.

Most Christmas Day police call-outs are for verbal arguments that are getting out of control. 

"Everybody knows their own individual history and points of conflict and we'd ask people to put those points aside this time of year," he said.

"Quite often it's people who haven't had an issue all year and then they have members of the family that they would not normally interact with and they are in each other's houses.

"They are then part of each other's lives and old disputes get raised, alcohol is involved and arguments happen.

“But we don’t want it to escalate to the point where there’s physical violence.

“So just give us a call straight away if it does get out of control and you can’t sort it out yourselves."