Don't be surprised if you see us wearing ghastly knitted jumpers with a reindeer or an elf on the front in the middle of summer. It's a thing. It's not our fault we were born in the Southern Hemisphere.
Surely Kiwi kids (well, Kiwi 20-somethings) deserve to be able to engage in a bit of festive nostalgia too, even if it does involve an unfortunate amount of perspiration. Just go with it.
If the millennial at your Christmas table happens to be a now-grown child, returned home from their cosmopolitan life in the city, don't be alarmed if they seem to regress before your very eyes.
The world is a tough place for millennials, what with the constant need to publish carefully art-directed selfies, the impenetrability of the aforementioned housing market, and the modern hell that is dating apps.
Going home can have the unintended consequence of making us feel like running around in our togs and our gumboots and asking for dipping eggs (as they're known in my family home) for breakfast.
We will revert to adulthood when we drag ourselves back to the office in January. Until then, we'll quite happily give in to childhood memories.
Alternatively, if the young person in your midst is unfamiliar to you, it might pay to find out what breed of millennial you're dealing with up front.
While some will burst into tears at the very mention of injustice, others have prematurely staunched the oxygen flow to their hearts quite successfully.
If you fancy a spot of beneficiary bashing, first ask whether your millennial specimen is a member of Young ACT. If so, proceed with reckless abandon. If not, you should be safe asking them what they're watching on Netflix.
Millennials, as you likely already know, speak a language of their own. If you hear us uttering the word "queen", for example, we don't mean the actual queen. We mean Beyoncé. Or potentially Michelle Obama.
Similarly, if you overhear your millennial saying that something is "lit", don't worry - they haven't become a part-time arsonist. It may pay to download the Urban Dictionary app and consult it every time something unintelligible emerges from a nearby millennial mouth. Then again, it may be safer not to. Don't say I didn't warn you.
And then there's the good old millennial existential crisis.
If one of your millennial guests is going through a period of 'finding themselves', resist the urge to ask them about their five-year plan.
Their own Instagram feed asks them what the hell they're doing with their life on a regular basis. The idea of 'keeping up with the Joneses' seems like a quaint, harmless pastime when you compare it to the pressure of keeping up with the perfectly curated lives of friends, colleagues and acquaintances on a daily basis. Give them a break. It's Christmas.
Far worse than a slightly wayward millennial is one who is performatively obsessed with paleo, keto, or any other fad diet du jour (with the exception of those who follow such diets for medical reasons).
If a millennial wants to bring their hot new diet home for Christmas, they need to take responsibility for it for the duration of its stay under the family roof. If diet options for Christmas dinner are demanded, the dieter should be quickly made aware that they will be providing such options themselves. That's paying for and preparing.
Cooking a turkey is stressful enough without having to worry about a paleo alternative for duck fat potatoes.
Lastly – and it must be said – steer clear of jokes that rely on race or gender to deliver a laugh. It may have been funny in your day. Times might have been different then. We might be "too bloody PC" these days.
But racist and sexist jokes will be likely to have the overwhelming effect of making millennials think that their teller is a plonker. And no one wants to be thought of as a plonker.
All of this may have led you to the not-totally-untrue conclusion that we millennials can be a bit precious. I'm not here to defend us. I'm merely here to give you an insight into how to keep the peace when Christmas morning rolls around.
If all else fails, wine helps. Merry Christmas.
