As Christmas rapidly approaches, crazy-eyed consumers gear up to execute the most financially crippling, over the top, over-egged Sunday lunch of the year. This year, to be held on a Thursday.

Christmas: Basically a Sunday lunch that sets you back a couple of grand
Thousands of pounds will be spent in these heathen isles, dressing up a normal Sunday lunch to be an emotionally-stretching teetering pile of excess.
For those with children, and who neither hold any particular Christian belief nor adhere to a more pagan interpretation of midwinter, the awkward, heel-kicking, hands in pockets pretence of celebrating the birthday of the son of a God they don’t really believe in will probably go something like this:
November:
Start clearing space in cupboards for pickled goods that will never be eaten.
Get bombarded by adverts for toys you cannot comprehend, no matter how hard you try.
Set expectations of not going too over the top this year, and some old bullshit about a budget.
Realise far too late in the month that realistically you only have this month’s pay packet to do EVERYTHING.
Start bracing the credit card for some pretty bad news.
Start looking around for stocking fillers (expensive crap). Essential, unwanted, instantly discarded. Budget about 50 quid a head.
However: The starting gun does not officially fire until you purchase the first alcoholic drink and manage to put it safely out of your own reach in, say, the garage. If you drink this bottle, you fail. Return to Go. Do not collect £200.
If you are mentally damaged, you may put up a Christmas tree towards the end of the month. You seriously want to dust a Christmas tree?
Most of December up until the 24^th:
Waiting for the children’s Santa list to settle down so that you don’t foolishly believe their fickle meanderings committed to paper for a fictional being, and go and get the wrong present, thereby ruining everything. Because let’s face it, the advertising is going into meltdown now, and they could well be brainwashed into wanting something they didn’t even know existed a few weeks previously.
You are allowed to feel as if you have achieved something once you have purchased the first “main” present. This will be followed nanoseconds later by a feeling of dread once you realise how much there is still to do.
As the month progresses. Abandon budget. Abandon lists. Start buying stuff randomly.
The last week before Christmas:
You must buy at least £200 worth of alcohol. This is a minimum. Christmas is cancelled if this is not done. It’s the rules. Try and do as much as possible at once, so that you can look like a raging alcoholic in the supermarket with a groaning, clanking trolley of grog.
If more people are coming over Christmas, then you will need to buy more beers. These should barely clear the bar of “not supermarket own brand”. And a box of wine. You must hide a fair proportion of the “good stuff” in case the human locusts descending upon your abode get ideas above themselves and want some of it. The greedy self-centred bastards.
Peanut buying formula: Number of adults expected in the house over the holiday, even momentarily X 1.5Kg
You will have olives in the house. Whether you eat them or not.
Tangerines or similar must be acquired in abundance. Try to imagine you have to fill a mini with them so that people can guess how many there are in the car. On the plus side, they make the food waste bin smell better when they all go in there once they get those blotches of whitish blue mould on them.
Buy a rock hard frozen carcass of some mutant bird that just about fits in your oven, and/or some massive part of a super-pig that just doesn’t exist in the shops for the rest of the year.
Dec 24^th:
The children are already crazed on a mixture of boredom from school holidays, plus over excitement.
Before they go to bed: Ceremonially place a mince pie, a carrot and a glass of whiskey on a plate outside the back door for Santa and reindeer.
Remind children that should they fail to go to bed / sleep that Santa won’t come and that they will be responsible for ruining Christmas.
Spend ENTIRE evening wrapping the mountain of presents. This must become a mechanical operation where, no matter how hard you try to enjoy what you’re doing, it becomes no more fun than the dullest vegetable processing plant packaging job. Remember to start drinking excessively.
Stack massive pile of presents under tree as best you can now you’re a bit pissed.
Continue drinking.
Realise it has gone midnight.
Have a Baileys.
Have another Baileys.
Have fitful sleep.
Attempt ninja-style operation to place stocking of presents in children’s rooms. Ensure stocking is making loud crackling noises, and that floorboards are squeaking. A comedy squeaky fart to start tearful giggling won’t go amiss here.
Collapse into bed.
Get out of bed.
Go downstairs.
Open back door. Find plate for Santa. Inspect to ensure no rodent / pest has been at foodstuffs.
Bite end off carrot. Leave end of carrot on plate, displaying realistic reindeer bite mark. Throw rest of carrot over fence into neighbour’s garden. Do not attempt to eat mince pie. Why would you? Throw mince pie over fence into other neighbour’s garden. Replace foil tray from mince pie on plate. Drink Whiskey.
Go back to bed.
You now have approximately 1 hour before everyone is awake again.
Congratulations. You have now made it to the day of the most expensive Sunday roast of the year (this year, on a Thursday)… Put the oven on. Have some peanuts. Begin drinking.