The '24:7' days of Christmas

However, if the idea of watching Ground Force, Bargain Hunt or the Queen's Speech is giving you an anxiety attack then at leastyou can make use of your presents by opting out of the traditional family bickering and slap on your Frank Skinner video, Alan Partridge DVD or, if you were very unlucky, your box set of Chariots of Fire.

2 Turtle Necks

There are some people who are brutally honest about their Christmas gifts, which means they never end up with appalling presents as people are too scared to buy them anything in the first place. The rest of us understand that to give is human, to receive without a look of horror, divine. Start practising that joyous reaction for when you open that pullover sporting reindeer bobbles and a tinkly bell hanging off one sleeve. Entering the New Year without an unwanted item of clothing is like stopping after the first Pringle: It's never going to happen.

3 Fat Uncles

Everyone starts to feel a warm, friendly glow at Christmas, which is why you see all those relatives you'd forgotten were still alive. Once they are embedded on your sofa you realise you don't see them for the other 11 months of the year because they bore you witless. Steel yourself for hearing about the time Uncle Pat had a ride on a 1920's steam engine, get plenty of milk stout in for Uncle Percy and open the window for Uncle Eddie's flatulence. It could be a long day.

4 Check-out Queues

Some people start buying for Christmas in January, some in summer. Most of us just promise the above and then run out in a panic the week before. Some take the day off to escape the crowds, not realising that everyone else in the country has had the same idea. You could order goods online but your mum might be disappointed that the bath spa she requested turns out to be a Black and Decker sander. Brave the queues, wrestle old biddies for the last inflatable pot holder and, of course, swear next year you'll do it all in June.

5 Gold Coins

Christmas is the most expensive time of year, due to the rule that you must spend three times as much money as you actually have. You could economise and make your own gifts but as no one in your family wants a collage made of fuzzy felt you'd best not bother. If you have kids you might as well accept that you are going to spent the next 16 years teetering on the edge of bankruptcy or, alternatively, just buy them an orange but be aware that they'll probably end up in counselling in later life. It's your choice.

6 Songs a Singing

We all love Christmas songs, which is a good job as we've been hearing them for the last seven weeks solid. Supermarkets entice customers to buy boxes of Quality Street the size of bungalows by piping George Michael into their ears. Mums and Dads anticipate the big day with a spot of Johnny Mathis and Christmas parties sway to the inevitable strain of Noddy Holder and The Wombles. Taste just doesn't come into it, as The Cheeky Girls well know.

7 Colleagues Cringing

Unless you get into Baileys in a big way over Xmas you won't be able to wipe away the buttock-clenching embarrassment of the work's do. In between the flashbacks, try to console yourself that though you tripped over a chair leg, showed your knickers to the whole of accounts and called your managing director a piggy-eyed bletch, everyone else was as drunk as you and probably won't remember. However, this is unlikely to be true, and you should probably just resign.

8 Mates a Mithering

As Christmas approaches the least welcome question (aside from 'do you want a sticky date?') is 'What are you doing for New Year?'. People who organise their social diaries with military precision collapse in a heap of uncertainty at this. Most people ask the question but take care never to commit themselves lest a better offer comes along. This technique is often responsible for people sitting alone on New Year's Eve watching Channel 5 while their mates are skiing in the Alps.

9 Ladies Dancing

There is so much booze flowing at Christmas that gratuitous displays of frugging can hardly be avoided. Some of this will be at your Christmas party or disco, accompanied by daft hat and comedy antlers, but such is the power of Drambuie that many a Christmas evening has been hijacked by a sprightly aunt who wants to get a Bee Gees song off her chest. Clear a space and let her get on with it. Better still, hand her a plate as she spins and use her as a revolving nibbles dispenser.

10 Lads a Leering

Anyone who has ever copped off on Dec 31 knows there is something slightly dubious about a New Year's snog: In the midst of smug couples, singles are forced to take drastic action on this night lest they enter 2003 with the semblance of a love life, and thus jinx themselves for the next 12 months. I'm not saying love can't bloom under these conditions - I'm just saying that if a bloke come up to you at 1.50am on New Year's Eve, he's probably waggled his mistletoe at 4/5 of the club.

11 Gripers Griping

Christmas is a time for optimism bordering on the insane, good cheer verging on the manic and a firm belief that all is well with the world. Yet there will always be a certain group of bah humbuggers waffling on about commercialism and refusing to wear baubles on their ears at the Xmas do. Shock tactics involving a locked room and a medley of pan-piped Christmas tunes is the only possible treatment.

12 Turkey Drumsticks

Christmas is the only time of year where it is acceptable to eat and eat until you feel your stomach lining might rip, and then pop another Malteser in your mouth, just for fun. This may be because in December we buy enough food to survive a nuclear war for a decade and then wonder why we can't move for Twiglets. Then we eat and eat so all the food is gone and can't entice us anymore. This is where those neon wrestling pants off your Auntie Joan come in handy: by January they're the only thing you can fit into.