Begin thinking about things early:
This first rule/guideline is, of course, blindingly obvious to everyone except a small group of festively challenged people that we shall call ‘men’. Let’s focus on them.
It’s not like we don’t get enough warning that Christmas is on its way, conveniently falling as it does on the same date every year.
And those hard-working advertisers are happy to do their bit - cynically swinging on our heart strings before Guy Fawkes has even stopped smouldering.
Before November is out, you can’t move for feature length adverts featuring confused moon dwelling pensioners.
So maybe there’s no excuse. Or perhaps there is…
You see scientists have discovered that ‘men’ have an extremely efficient attention filter. It’s an evolutionary thing probably, it means that we might be good at concentrating on chucking a spear at a sabre tooth tiger but we tend to blank out anything that isn’t immediately useful.
As I write this, my wife could be warning me that my legs are on fire and I would be none the wiser, because I am busy ‘doing writing’.
It is very easy to overload the sensitive ‘man’ brain and once it trips, repeated attempts to break through the attention filter will only make the mind shut down even further, like a barnacle grabbing hold of a rock. So when I say get ready early – I mean early.
That means logging on to that huge faceless online shopping site and ordering roughly anything that might make a Christmas present… During your summer holidays.
Sling it all in a wardrobe and let it marinade until December 24.
Don’t even think about drinking until The Great Escape comes on the telly (usually about 2.30pm):
Don’t be tempted by the ready availability of those weird drinks that people only ever chug back at Christmas - to quote Chris Rea, they are the road to hell.
Yes, egg nog would seem to be the perfect breakfast accompaniment (it’s got egg in it right?) and you may reason that a cheeky half pint of the stuff is the ideal way to ‘get your Yule on’ but don’t go there. One simple egg nog is a gateway to a sly flute of creme de menthe and before you know it you’re showing excited children ‘how skateboard tricks are really done’ with a pint of flaming Sambuca in one hand and a fistfull of really nice Stilton in the other. Avoid at all costs. No one wants to spend Christmas day having embedded Lego removed from their faces.
Address the ‘whose house are we going round to this year?’ elephant in the room.
Family diplomacy is a little like trying to put a bobble hat on a sleeping tiger - it’s almost impossible to do, there’s a fair chance that you will get savaged and you quickly begin to question why you are even doing it in the first place.
I would advise leaving everything as vague as possible - make the important call to everyone you need to, on the pretext of calling about something else - and make sure you don’t commit to anything.
Those who want to come over will do it anyway - despite what you arranged three months ago; and those that don’t… won’t.
Any actual plans, no matter how well meant, will only come back to bite you… like that furious hat-wearing tiger I mentioned earlier.
Rehearse your ‘pleased’ face
Ask any facial reconstruction surgeon how many muscles there are in the human face and he will quickly say “42” before asking you to step out of his light as he is trying to perform a particularly tricky reattachment procedure.
[caption id=“attachment_18040” align=“alignright” width=“300”]
The Very Best of Chris De Burgh… the ULTIMATE Christmas present[/caption]
Now, that’s a lot of muscles that all have to be marshalled into some sort of genuine smile when you unwrap ‘The Best of Chris De Burgh’ - your head swimming with the egg nog that I warned you not to drink earlier.
In the lead up to Christmas you need to put yourself through a rigorous smile boot camp - something like 50 full-on smiles a day from now until Christmas should mean that your face will effortlessly spring into an expression of genuine heartfelt gratitude as you unwrap Michael Gove’s autobiography.
And you should be able to hold it there for at least 30 seconds (any longer and it gets a little creepy).
Board games
You’re sitting back in your protesting chair and you’ve managed to maintain the smile face for most of the day (see above) and it’s time to kick back and relax. But as sure as night follows day, the dead zone between the post lunch cheeseboard and the 4pm cake is the one time in the year when we are expected to play board games.
It must be stressed that some games are better than others: Buckaroo and Operation are far too stressful – the prospect of being struck in the face by a flying plastic saddle at any given moment is frankly unappealing.
Also avoid anything that demands you have to do ‘acting’ – Charades makes my blood run cold.
So does acting, and actors come to think of it. You also need to run a mile from anything that has no end in sight, Monopoly can drag on for days and some people have been known to devour the entire pack of community chest cards to avoid starving to death.
So that only leaves the best board game ever… Escape from Colditz, a heady blend of racial stereotypes and ‘war as entertainment’
I know it’s wrong but I love it.
Look after number one
Forget all this guff about Christmas being about giving to others and putting everyone else first. Your primary responsibility should be for yourself. After all, if other people can see that you are having a good time and if they genuinely claim they love putting other people first (they don’t… not really) then surely you are putting them first, by putting yourself first.. see?
Bearing this in mind, there is plenty you can do to make sure that your Christmas goes with a swing.
Simply place a rolled up £20 note inside your own cracker at the Christmas table. Then act genuinely surprised at your good fortune while everyone else is forced to endure those really painful plastic clip on moustaches.
Or you could of course substitute those lame cracker jokes with some of your own involving nuns and bicycles.
The possibilities are endless.