The middle-aged guide to actually enjoying Christmas

After 40-plus Christmases, there are simply no surprises left in your stocking, no fun to be had under the mistletoe - this guide will fix your Christmas blues. Photo / 123RF

Remember how Christmas felt when you were a kid? Remember the magic, the excitement, the exotic smells like cloves and orange peel and red wine bubbling away on a hob? Remember how, come December, the world's backdrop was a big, glowing fire, keeping everyone warm and happy?

It really was the most wonderful time of the year - and then you got older, and everything turned to reindeer turds.

Festive cheer decreases at an inversely proportional rate to age. After 40-plus Christmases, there are simply no surprises left in your stocking, no fun to be had under the mistletoe. Instead, December shakes you mercilessly from start to finish like an angry drunk convinced you stole his shoes.

It's a month of stress and shopping - a month tailor made to leave middle-aged you feeling battered and broken. Broken from worrying about getting all of your work done in time. Broken from endlessly discussing which set of in-laws to descend upon. Broken from ferrying numerous children around to bark at elves, or to shout incoherently through carol services.

Somewhere along the line, Christmas lost its magic. A tragedy - and one that can be avoided. It's time to tear your shirt open and to raise two defiant fingers to the crackling maelstrom overhead. It's time to shout "Merry Christmas everyone" into the abyss, because this year, you are going to discover your middle-aged festive spirit even if it kills you from alcohol poisoning (always drink responsibly).

Step 1: Listen to good Christmas music

This year, to save you from the tears, ban Wham, Slade, and Radio 2 from the home. A Charlie Brown Christmas by the Vince Guaraldi Trio is your new Christmas album of choice - its gorgeous, jazzy melancholia really seems to understand how you feel at this time of year.

Step 2: Eat as many Christmas sandwiches as possible

The Christmas sandwich has become a seasonal big hitter on the working lunch circuit, because what better way to get in the festive mood than with an expensive snack from Pret a Manger? Who cares if they're worryingly high in calories - it's Christmas, you're allowed to indulge.

Actually, while we're at it, isn't Pret a Manger French for "prepare a manger"? You don't get much more Christmassy than that.

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Step 3: Get your shopping done early

No more silently screaming in department stores, no more standing in the middle of a high street on Christmas Eve breathing into a paper bag. Such an easy step in theory, such a hard ask in practice - but nothing will help you enjoy this Yuletide more.

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Step 4: Only buy tactical presents

In years gone past, you've looked at items in shops and asked yourself 'Would so-and-so appreciate this?' A change of tack is needed. By asking the question 'Will my life be better if I gift this to so-and-so', you'll find Christmas Day's present-giving session to be exciting once again. You'll find you genuinely look forward to your daughter unwrapping her new noise-cancelling over-ear headphones (all the better for listening to Justin Bieber - without subjecting you to it too).

What's that darling? You're not sure you need another iPad? Oh, OK. Well, I don't have one, so ...

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Step 5: Drink sherry

Remember how your nan would always drink her seasonal sherry from a little glass shaped like a tiny corset and it would remind you of Christmas? It's time to dust off those old family traditions and update them for a new generation. Try buying a bottle of sherry and drinking it from a bigger glass. See? You're already feeling better.

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Step 6: Do NOT attend the school nativity play

Every year you think it might make you feel festive, but unfortunately there are no cockles to be warmed from watching two thirds of the Three Wise Men crying theirs eyes out while Mary picks her nose and eats it through a muddled rendition of Little Donkey.

Be genuinely wise, and attempt to De-Scrooge yourself elsewhere this year.

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Step 7: Answer the door to carol singers

When you're little, carol singers fill you with warm loveliness and excited anticipation. And then you learn about "supply and demand" and the basic rules of capitalism, until eventually you find yourself ducking behind the front door and aggressively shushing your family, convinced that the Glee Club outside is after your money.

This year, take a deep breath, embrace their choral reinterpretations, and allow the Festive Spirit to infect you. Surely worth it for a fiver?

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Step 8: Take a child to see Father Christmas

Yes, the fat man with a face that incorporates every shade of red may only be a very loose embodiment of the 4th Century Turkish Bishop St Nicholas, but just look at the sheer joy on your child's face. Without wanting to get too soppy, that's genuinely what it's all about.

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Merry Christmas, everyone.

This article was originally publish by The Telegraph.