There are thousands of blogs which will help you plan a perfect Christmas, a luxe Christmas, a no-holds-barred all-the-trimmings Insta-Christmas. But what if you do not have the time, money or inclination to spend an entire month working towards just one day? Like weddings, it’s possible to spend a huge amount on one day and forget about the true purpose of the celebration. Plus debt. Who needs Christmas debt and guilt as they begin a new year?

Therefore I do my best every year to avoid over-Christmassing. I have trimmed down gift giving, decorating, food purchase and everything else which does not actually add to my enjoyment of Christmas. It’s not (just) that I’m tight. I would just rather spend money on my family throughout the year than blow it all in one afternoon. I would rather remember the time spent together than the weeks of exhaustion and burnout as I try to cobble together the best Christmas ever.

Here, then, is my Christmas to-do list. It’s pretty short. But it should leave you with energy to enjoy the big day, and money so that on Boxing day you’re not too broke to go to the pub if you want. And notice that I’m not talking about limiting how much money you spend on gifts etc. If you want to get your kid the latest gadget from the shiniest shop, that’s your business. I’m limiting effort, which usually also has the side-effect of limiting spend. Let’s go.

One gift each

This is a biggie. Over the last few years I began to fall into a world of themed gift collections for my friends and family. So, say, a book about birds, but accompanied by a bird notebook and a bird pen plus some chocolates which had a picture of a bird on the front and oh look there’s an extra fifty quid on a person whose actual present is a book about birds.

If this is you, stop doing that. Give the bird book, they’ll love it. The other stuff is just novelty ephemera. One gift allows a person to look at it and appreciate the gesture. It allows you to sort out one gift and then tick them off the list. It’s done. You do not need matching paper or themed accessories, you have arranged the gift and that’s it. Next person.

Note: this rule does not apply to your kid. Obviously. What am I, Scrooge?

Side note: who are you giving gifts to? If you find yourself planning what to get for the binman and that woman from church who once said hello to you, then stop. Would your time and effort be better spent on something else? I’m sure the binman loves your Christmas chocolates. If he’s definitely on your must-give list then great. But even a token gift basically costs a tenner these days. Do you want to blow your salary on twenty gifts for near-strangers? I’m not saying don’t do it, I’m saying don’t do it without thinking about it.

Pre-Christmas Christmases are banned

When did going for a drink after your last day of work before the break, become weeks and weeks of preparatory Christmas celebration? There are team drinks, department drinks, Mums’ drinks, Lads’ drinks, people from school or football club or choir drinks, and for each of these drinks you might also substitute ‘meal with starter, dessert, after dinner drink and maybe cocktails if we go on somewhere.’ In other words, a swift one before you all said goodbye for two weeks has now morphed into a massive commitment and expenditure which repeats itself every couple of days for a month. And if you live in a busy area there will be January and even February Christmas drinks because you couldn’t get a room booked in December. Oh my god! It’s not obligatory!

Have Christmas at Christmas. We all love to get together with friends and workmates and let our hair down a bit after a long year – but there is no need to pack your diary to bursting with appointments to try to do Christmas with everybody. If you’re running out of time and energy, defer the meetup until a more convenient time and detach it from Christmas so nobody feels obliged to go spending mad. Friends will understand. Workmates won’t care.

The must haves can be the only-haves- School Nativity Plays

You can’t not go to your kid’s nativity. You just can’t. If you miss it, that’s the kind of thing that shows up in those Painful Lives memoirs. So mark school Christmas events in the diary and make them immovable. Any other commitment on those days – ditch it. As above, your friends will understand and everyone else can get stuffed. I know someone who missed his child’s only appearance in a nativity play because of a work thing . Thirty years ago. He still regrets it. Save yourself that and just go.

But don’t go to anything less than the nativity. Not school fairs, church coffee mornings, any other kind of Christmas themed shindig which takes up your precious rest time. These are all distractions. If you have plenty of time then great. But don’t go squeezing in these nice-to-haves at the expense of your sanity. When your kid is at university or away on a gap year, knock yourself out attending the mulled wine evening at your local hairdressers. But until then, give it a miss. Just don’t miss their Nativity. There will be plenty of years when it’s not a thing, so make the most of it now.

Send cards only to people you won’t see

If you are literally going to be handing a card to someone who lives under the same roof as you, consider trimming this from your Christmas to do list. Same goes for people you don’t live with but who you will see in the run up to Christmas. Yes, many of us enjoy exchanging husband and wife cards with romantic little messages in. But every member of your extended family does not need an individual card. A card each? What the heck?

Send cards to people you won’t see. Let them know you’re thinking of them, that’s the point of Christmas cards. People on the other side of the turkey know you’ve thought of them because you have turned up/cooked the a massive roast. Anyone who’s regularly on Facebook with me is also unlikely to receive a physical card. I’ll wish you well on Christmas Eve!) It’s the rest who will appreciate a card.

Avoid card wars in which notes are kept of who did or didn’t send a card and of what standard. Do not get sucked into the Giant Hallmark Card With a Teddy competition which goes on in some circles. The size of the card does not represent the extent of your affection, much as Clintons and co would like us to think so. Send everyone the same card.

As before this minimal rule does not apply to your kid, dog or spouse. But you don’t, I assume, have two hundred of those.

The Big Christmas Food Shop

All right stop there. You do not eat more on 25th December than any other day. I mean, you might have a few extra treats. But you do not need five times the amount of food that 24th December requires. You do not need bowls of peanuts and pretzels all over the house. You do not need double the amount of anything unless you are entertaining double the amount of people. You do not need it!

Plan the meals for the week the way you normally would. What are you going to eat each day, how many people is it for, buy the right amount of stuff. Yes, add treats. But don’t get sucked into the 24-hour-snacking-fest which Christmas has become. Jeez.

The Big Christmas Tat Shop

Here’s a list of things I’ve seen on sale in my local supermarket this week:

• Christmas duvets
• Christmas hand towels
• Christmas loo roll
• Christmas welcome mat
• Christmas plates, glassware, mugs
• Christmas floral arrangements
• Christmas cheese (ie cheese, but on a board covered in clingfilm)
• Christmas ice cube trays

Guess how many of these you need? None. Your ordinary duvet still works the same at Christmas. And I assume your arse does not special festive wiping.

The other insidious part of Christmas these homewares is they give you jobs to do:

• change the bedding
• change the bath towels
• change loo roll

and then, after Christmas , change it all back again.

This is a massive waste of time and effort. Again, if you love this and have ample time and energy, then go for it. But it is not necessary.

Just a tree

This is quite Dickensian, but I don’t really decorate the rest f my house. I have a tree, the end. This s partly because the shape of my lounge does not end itself to stringing garlands etc, but also because my tree is so Christmassy. It needs nothing else.

• We get a real tree, although I am warming to the idea of re-using an artificial one each year and leaving the oxygen-makers in the ground.
• We carry the tree back from our local shop along the street, which we all find hilarious.
• We always decorate the tree as a family using the box of decorations.
• We add one new bauble a year.
• We have the lights on a timer so that Christmas magically starts every day when we get up (and when we get home from work).
• We snap a pic of us round the tree and put it on facebook.

Done. What else is needed, really?

Some people like to have multiple trees, and children love having their own tree in their room or whatever. Ok, but that’s not on your to do list . Just do your main tree, the end. And it will look wonderful.

Avoid adopting a dozen new traditions

Where did Christmas Eve boxes come from? When did it become a thing to start Christmas day with champagne or go to the pub before lunch? Why so some Christmas days end up so full of ‘traditional’ rituals that there is no time to relax and enjoy yourself?

If your Christmas is chock a block with must-do traditions, stop and think whose tradition it is. This blog suggests fifty. FIFTY. Family rituals are important, maybe the most important part of the celebration. But I bet you weren’t brought up with a Christmas Eve box (unless you are from Germany, where it’s traditional to open gifts at that time instead of , not as well as, Christmas day).

It’s up to you what time you eat Christmas dinner (although,who has it at seven pm, what is wrong with you people?? It’s at lunchtime! ) what you have for breakfast and when you open the presents. Nobody else has your Christmas so you decide. Unless you insist on sharing your day hour by hour on social media, nobody is judging you. (Don’t share your entire day. Just don’t.) You are in charge of your Christmas. Do what you love to do and nothing else.

Resist the urge to begin inventing new traditions which then become chores or your Christmas will look like this:

• go to the garden centre’s Christmas decoration launch in October
• attend lights switch on in November
• buy advent calendars
• confirm which set of family you will be visiting in each time slot over the Christmas period
• think up 24 things for Elf on the Shelf to do which are different from all previous things he’s done
• make gingerbread house
• have a family photoshoot
• buy novelty jumper for work Christmas jumper day
• write cards for everybody you’ve ever met
• buy matching PJs for the whole family
• buy presents from Santa, presents for Santa, presents for Christmas Eve, presents for Christmas day morning, presents for Christmas day lunch (yes, that is now apparently a thing.)
• make reindeer food to scatter outside
• bake cookies in special shapes for Santa, ie you
• purchase a ton of Christmas themed items you will only use one day per year
• attend the school’s six December fundraising events out of a massive sense of guilt that you have not been very mumsy in the year
• go for drinks with everone who invites you to their pre Christmas drinks
• post cards and parcels before the last posting date
• plan breakfasm dinner and tea on Christmas day like a military operation
• go to the panto
• go to the local town’s winter sparkle ice rink thing
• go to the big town’s Christmas markets and buy a mug you will never use
• buy stuff for work secret Santa
• attend work team, department and general Christmas meals
• buy gifts for anyone who comes to your door during a six week period
• don’t forget teacher gifts and don’t forget every child now has four teachers
• dress in matching onesies for family Christmas Eve box opening
• on Christmas day, rise ahead of everyone and begin creating a scrambled egg and smoked salmon breakfast, pouring champagne
• return to bed to open Santa presents with kids in a specific order
• dress in Christmas Day jumper to open non Santa gifts downstairs and have special breakfast
• phone everybody
• re-dress in Christmas Day formal clothes for traditional trip to pub for Xmas day drinks
• return home for special day brunch and phone calls with distant family
• welcome guests, add their special baubles to tree
• get cracking on dinner because it’s almost eleven o’clock!

Noen of these are bad but makigng them into a tradition gives you a timetable you will feel exhausted by and guity abotu if you don’t meet it. Calm down. Do what your family does.

One year we were so exhausted from opening presents (there was a new baby in the house) that we had cheese sandwiches for lunch (it was just us, no guests) and cooked the roast the next day. Why not? Nobody’s watching.

My Christmas To Do list

• Write cards for those I will not see (fewer than 30 people, might be fewer than 20 this year)
• Make a list of must-give people (close family, best friends – fewer than 12)
• Get one gift per person
• Put up Christmas tree and decorate with family
• Buy normal food for Christmas week. Then add trimmings as required
• Post cards and any gifts for distant family
• Attend Nativity
• Pre Christmas bash with work

Just look at all the things I’m not doing. That frees me up to do stuff that’s valuable to me.

And that is the point, isn’t it?

Benefits:

• Save time
• Save energy (yours and the planet’s)
• Save money
• Generate less waste in the form of gifts, paper etc
• Save your sanity

Any one of those has to be worth a try, surely?