I love Christmas. Not in a “midnight Mass, stained glass and soaring carols echoing through the rafters” kind of way. No, I love the other Christmas. The kitsch Christmas. The Christmas of fairy lights, bonbons, Elf on the Shelf, Woolworths pavlovas. The Christmas of utterly arbitrary, yet fiercely defended, traditions.

On the day itself, you must have a Christmas Day outfit, preferably in a shade of red or green.Credit: iStock

If your family is anything like mine, the festive season is dictated by a set of unwritten, unbreakable domestic edicts. These are The Rules. The Christmas Rules. They are passed on through knowing glances, offhand comments (“you can’t put the tree up before December 1st”) and the shared panic of a new person discreetly tucking their paper crown under a napkin, instead of perching it jauntily atop their head where it belongs.

The rules, are the rules, are the rules.

For instance: Board games on Christmas Eve are compulsory. They must begin in good cheer and end in chaos. Someone must accuse someone else of cheating. Monopoly is banned in our household for reasons we all understand. A dark-horse cousin will emerge as a terrifyingly ruthless Scrabble player. A grandparent will fall asleep mid-game and one of the kids will burst into floods of tears when........

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