‘It’s Christmas time. There’s no need to be afraid….’

It’s the shortest day of the year. It’s freezing and it’s raining. It’s darker than a Leonard Cohen lyric and the wind is gusting to 70 miles per hour. There are long delays at the airports, the roads are gridlocked, and the trains are on strike. Your children are ill with temperatures that rival Chernobyl. Your wife’s new best friend is a divorce lawyer. And you still haven’t told her about being backed into a corner by Agnes from Accounts at the office party. But don’t worry. It will get worse. Much worse.

Christmas is like a two week-long zombie movie where no matter how many you kill, there is always another one around the corner. Physically exhausted, suffering from lack of sleep and alcohol poisoning, you have to cook dinner for 18 while pretending to be Audrey Hepburn or Cary Grant. Bear Grylls only made it to Day 3.

Supposedly, the probability of surviving a major catastrophe increases if you accept that the situation has changed, that the old rules don’t apply, and that you have to find new ones. So, here they are. Welcome to the Survivors’ Guide to Christmas