1. The Christmas jumper.

Once upon a time a Christmas jumper was just a winter woolly you got for Christmas. Possibly it had a snowflake pattern. Then it was an ironic piece of knitwear that you wore to make people laugh at you, while you laughed with them, possibly with a knowing nod to Bridget Jones’s Diary. Then, and it’s hard to know why this happened, it started stepping out of the privacy of people’s living rooms, onto the streets and into our workplaces – shops, schools, offices. Worse still, it became OK to wear them at any time in the Christmas period, which, depending on your view, starts somewhere between August and Hallowe'en. This bizarre body-snatching cult has to be stopped. Yes, jumpers do allow you to actually look slimmer when you take them off in the New Year and therefore mean you can skip the January gym madness. But, people, we do not have to do this. There are other excuses for laughing from August through to December. Christmas socks, for instance, or giant festive pom-pom hats.

2. The rubbish Christmas telly

One of the most adhered to and time-honoured Christmas traditions is watching hours of post-lunch television that is simply bad for the soul. Often this is planned weeks in advance, with people buying the Radio Times, a publication they suddenly remember exists at this time of year, and circling programmes in red ink. However, these days you do not need to feel forced to watch the Eastenders Christmas Special, in which, let’s face it, someone is bound to meet a grisly end, or endure the uber-fluffiness of the Strictly Come Dancing Special or Great British Bake Off. Thankfully, Netflix, Amazon Prime and all the other online players allow you to catch up on some of the quality drama you missed at other times of the year. Or – radical idea – there’s even the company of your fellow friends and family, and a game of Guess The Christmas Special charades.

3. Over-eating like a hoglet

This isn’t a new one, though we seem to get better at it each year. The plates get bigger. The food-mountains piled on them get higher. The number of side-dishes multiplies so that our tables groan like the ones on supermarket adverts. In spite of the fact we’ve already been eating for months and will be eating leftovers for the next fortnight, we still consume like we will never see another plate of food. We could stop. But too often we only do so when we’re at the stage when moving feels dangerous and the safest possible strategy would be to lie down on the sofa and sleep off the rest of the day.

4. Peaking too soon

Say, by late November. When you arrive at Christmas Day having already eaten your weight in Lidl Christmas snacks, swallowed a reservoir of mulled wine and demolished at least five different festive dinners, burn-out is inevitable. The last thing you want is another mince pie. But you’re like a marathon runner, whose belly has been trained, and this is you just hitting the final stretch …

5 Joke presents.

A singing toothbrush; slippers that emit farting sounds when you walk; an inflatable “hipster” beard; a Bogey Man egg separator that leaks egg white through its nostrils; an animated turkey hat; a bearded table tennis bat. These, we kid you not, are real presents. People actually give them to their loved ones. Hilarious gifts like this are symptomatic of a world in which a great many people – though, let’s not forget, not everyone – already have what they need. So, just for a laugh, we get our relatives items that make them look daft and which they are forced to wear for at least the duration of the day, as a form of loving torture. The recipients are mostly grown adults, yet for some reason someone in their family feels the need to treat them like a child. Come New Year these objects will be sitting in the local charity shop on the shelf reserved for unwanted gag gifts.

6. Regifting

Usually it’s easy to recognise a present that has been regifted or possibly is destined to be gifted on by you. These include luxury bath product sets, candles, crockery that has no actual use, and farting slippers. Famously, in the original Seinfeld plot-line which popularised the term, the regifted gift in question was a useless label-maker. Think twice when you send these to anyone since you will either be suspected of regifting, or will force the recipient to regift, resulting, possibly, in resentment. What’s seldom appreciated however, is that there’s a beautiful economy to these regifted presents, since some appear to circulate endlessly for years, allowing us all to perform the symbolic act of giving without actually using any more world resources. Once, my parents regifted some friends a boxed bottle of whisky, only to have the exact same malt given back to them a year later, with about an inch already drunk. No-one knew by whom. But, proving that some of these gifts find a happy home, I was content to be the final recipient.

7. Christmas number ones

There used to be a time when the whole Christmas number one thing was fun. The golden days of the great festive hits – and I don’t mean Cliff Richard’s Mistletoe And Wine or Paul McCartney’s Wonderful Christmas. But now it’s become all too Simon Cowell X-mas, with the X Factor winner having so dominated the number one spot over the past decade, that one year, betting shops started taking odds on which record would come in at number two. Thankfully this year there’s a good chance that the Jo Cox tribute Rolling Stones cover will occupy the spot, but that’s not going to prevent When Christmas Comes Around –the single by this year's X Factor winner, Matt Terry – from being played to us endlessly. Well, you can’t always get everything you want.

8. Pet Christmas costumes

Don’t do it! The temptation is great. But there's a reason you never see a dog looking comfortable in a reindeer outfit. Your dog is not a reindeer. She also has no desire to pretend to be a reindeer, nor has she any comprehension of the fact that this is what she is meant to look like in those strap-on antlers which happen to match your own. There’s also a reason for the "How could you do this to me" look on your cat's face, when you put him in a Santa suit. And, no, it’s not that they’re striking a cute pose for you to Instagram – it’s that they view this as a form of torture. Nor does your pet need a doggy stocking. Do your pooch a favour and take it for a walk this Christmas, without baubles on. Or give your cat the present of a little quiet space, away from the flashing lights and loud noises.

9. 2016 family politics

Few of us don’t have the odd bigot or Trump-sympathiser in our families, and dealing with them could be one of the biggest challenges of this festive season. Given the divisive year we’ve just had, you’ll be lucky if round your Christmas table you don’t find yourself face to face with at least one person whose political views are so diametrically opposed to yours, you want to silence them by thrusting the full bowl of Brussels sprouts down their throat. The trick, here, is to eat every item of food you feel like throwing – even if that is the sprouts. The more you eat, the less energy you’ll have for a full-scale brawl or other act of extreme violence. Avoid proper conversation by reading out the worst jokes from everyone else’s crackers or the entire text of your Dad’s Guinness Book of Records. Try, if at all possible, not to call anyone a fascist or Nazi or racist. Or for that matter a snowflake. If necessary, cry. Play Pie Face and pretend that it’s Trump who is getting creamed.

10. Social media Christmas

Of course you’ll want to tweet the goodwill. Why wouldn't you want the world to know how cute you and your partner look in your matching Christmas jumpers, or how #festivefoodporn your turkey-loaded plate is? However, the live-tweeting and Instagramming of your Christmas Day, runs contrary to the festive spirit of physical togetherness. Put down the device before you head to the table – or at least consider restricting its use to the odd family photo. Above all, do not complain on social media about a present you have received, even if it is a box set of Lynx aftershave, some blindspot mirrors, Chocolate Chilli Willie Roulette, a Lady Gaga singing toothbrush, a “grow a boyfriend” pack, a Minions Fart Blaster or cotton wool buds, which were just a few of the gifts moaned about last year when #MyWorstChristmasPresent trended on Twitter. Ripping into your Christmas haul of presents, is also not something that the world needs to see on YouTube. Please remember, there are people out there who aren’t getting any #festivefoodporn and won’t be getting any presents, worst or best.

11. Experience presents

Never in your life have you thought of skydiving from an aeroplane or hot air ballooning, but there, inside the card, is the voucher that will ensure that you will be a daredevil whether you like it or not. Even worse, however, is the spa break for one – a voucher really for getting bored while someone prods your back or fiddles with your toes. Fortunately many of these gifts expire after a ridiculously short time. Unfortunately you’ll be there in the month before they do, fretting about how to fit the fear or boredom into your complicated life.

12. The Boxing Day sales

A rude awakening occurs every year on that moment that you see the first DFS sales advert and the tidal wave begins. Or when, you slump into the sofa at the end of a long day of Christmas feasting, surrounded by the packaging and wrapping paper that is testimony to your carbon footprint, and you and your family realise that it’s midnight and the sales have already started and you stay up into the night looking for the best deals on fitness gadgets and Nutribullets. These are the moments when you see Christmas Day for what it is – a temporary lull in a relentless winter festival of consumerism. A brief pause in the buying and selling marathon that began well before Black Friday and thunders on through the New Year. Worse still are the holiday ads. The winter holidays are not even over and we're being prompted to think about that next one, the sandy beaches of far off places.

And finally ... unlucky 13: the fact that it’s all over too fast. All that build-up and preparation effort, and it’s gone in a day, the best moments flitting past too quickly. Because really we love Christmas, in all its dysfunctional glory.