How to survive Christmas in TEN easy tips

From toilets (don't use them if you're a guest) to present giving (highly perilous), paper hats (mandatory) and chit chat (bland is best), Very British Problems creator ROB TEMPLE shares his unmissable (and hilarious) advice on surviving another UK festive season

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CHRISTMAS is upon us. By now your trees are probably up, the office parties are in full swing and somewhere in the cupboard sits a tin of posh biscuits — bought in November - that you're still not allowed to touch.

But it’s not all decorations and merriment 'tis now also the season of unbridled passive-aggression, regrettable purchases, guests sleeping on blowup beds and arguments over board games... all served with overcooked turkey.

Christmas is Very British Problems on steroids. All our strangest habits cranked up to 11 and wrapped in tinsel. I should know I've spent the last decade chronicling British awkwardness on social media. And my new book, A Very British Christmas, is a survival guide to the festive season written by someone who loves it (the chance to stuff my face and lie on the sofa) and loathes it (all the other bits) in equal measure.

So here, in no particular order, are the greatest pressure points of a classically British Christmas — and a few hard-won tactics for emerging on December 27 with your sanity, and most of your family relationships, intact.

ONLINE SHOPPING

They sold us a fantasy: Christmas shopping from your sofa, mulled wine in hand, zero stress. Reality: you spend three solid evenings scrolling, reading 400 reviews of heated socks that nobody actually wants, then finally hit “buy now” at 11:53pm because your special offer voucher expires in seven minutes. A week later, a soggy cardboard box is tossed over someone else's gate before the driver texts “parcel handed to resident”.

So now you have to leave the house anyway to either (a) find the parcel or (b) take it back to the post office because it’s wrong.

For option (b), you queue for 40 minutes at the counter, only to be told you can’t return it because you didn't print the label. You point out the website literally said, “No printer/label needed.”