Coping with Christmas.

Now that Advent is upon us, here are some valuable tips to help you to get through this difficult period.

• A neighbour’s Christmas card is a good way of planting their DNA at the scene of a crime, but always remember to cross your name out.
• It’s considered bad luck to set fire to your Christmas tree indoors.
• A cheap time-saving alternative to wrapping presents individually is to simply wrap the recipient’s head.
• Home-made presents are all well and good until someone starts using their own hair.
• If you give a gift token, you’re telling the recipient you don’t trust them with real money.
• Make it clear to your neighbours that you expect them to keep and reuse your Christmas card every year until such time as you fall out.
• If you can’t find a card that will suit someone, simply give them a gift token that can only be used at a card shop.
• If you receive an amusing Christmas card, show your appreciation by reminding the sender of it and laughing every time you see them. Text them the joke four or five times a month. Then give them an identical card the following Christmas.
• Make your neighbours think you got them a gift that was subsequently stolen by taping shreds of wrapping paper to their cards.
• A nice touch when hand-making Christmas cards for neighbours is to photoshop yourself into pictures of their families.
• If you are experiencing money troubles, just send one Christmas card with instructions to post copies to seven others, with some vague threat not to break the chain.
• Printing a multiple choice questionnaire of some sort inside the Christmas cards for your neighbours will ensure you get them back.
• Not all of your neighbours’ Christmas cards will be a scam to obtain your signature, but always use your wrong hand just in case.
• When writing Christmas cards for all your neighbours, always include the postscript ‘I know it was you’ to ensure a response.
• In January, retrieve the card you gave your neighbour from their bin. In March, go round to your neighbour’s house and ask them why the card you gave them with the lovely Robin on isn’t on display. In December, put the same food-stained card back through their door.