You cannot turn on the TV these days without seeing an all-too-familiar man with a long bushy beard. You cannot open a newspaper without reading guarded predictions concerning white powdery stuff.

What? You haven’t noticed?

It's Christmas!

Once again, it is time to gather with friends and family to celebrate the values that unite us. 

Once again, it is time: 

• for the dog to tear the wrapping paper off all the presents to test their viability as chew toys, 
• for Auntie Mavis to flirt drunkenly under the table with Uncle Harry, 
• and (just when you thought it couldn’t get any more exciting) for the Christmas turkey to self-combust in a glorious shower of savoury herbs and lethal carcinogens. 

There is an antidote for these trials and tribulations of the festive season. Whether your aim is to find true meaning in a world dominated by crass commercialism or simply to erect a twelve-foot high neon Santa in your front yard, help is at hand. 

I call it The Five Step "Turn Your Christmas Distress To De-stress" Plan.

STEP 1: Practice goodwill to all men, women, children, and off-duty Santas.

Laughter is infectious, and so is a smile – just don't confuse them with the plague: that really is infectious. This year, spread goodwill to everyone you meet, avoid suspicious-looking black rats, and should you encounter a staggering, off-duty bearded man in a red suit, it would be best not to mention the weight problem.

STEP 2: Buy the biggest Christmas tree you can find. This will ensure an endless series of hilarious, pine-needle-related foot injuries.

The decorations are what truly say it's Christmas – the banners, the tinsel, the string of Christmas tree lights long enough to wrap around the equator, twice. The latter will guarantee you hours of amusement at the most unpredictable times as you try to figure out exactly which one of the two hundred and fifty-seven hundred bulbs just blew. 

Know that it is crucially important that you place the tree in the exact centre of the living room. This is not a question of Feng Shui. It is so the dog, the cat, your inebriated or hungover house guests, and each and every one of the children get at least one good shot at knocking it down.

STEP 3. Release your inner child. (But leave your real ones locked up at home.) 

Retail therapy is good for the soul, especially when it involves careering around the toy shop wreaking digital pandemonium by pressing the "try me!" buttons on the season's latest crop of toys of Xtreme brutality.

Buying toys for your children can be fun too. The standard practice is to bring your children’s Christmas lists along and then systematically ignore them (see Step 5). Resist that temptation. Strap on a heavy duty pair of elbow pads and, in the name of all that is sacred about parental love and slavish subservience to your offspring, join the other grownups in the stampede for that very last, every-boy-under-the-age-of-thirteen-must-have-one Mega-powered Abseiling Plastic Arnold Schwarzenegger Action Hero. (On your way there, the Super Depleted-Uranium-Pellet Tranquillising Siege Weapon from aisle five might come in handy.)

Step 4: Improve your career prospects. Take a camera to the office Christmas party.

We all know the situation. You have been coveting one of the top jobs ever since you started at the company, but you just cannot get the boss to notice you. Well here’s the solution: 

• Go to the office party with your camera. 
• Spike the punch liberally with liqueur and hallucinogens.
• Ply buckets of the sweet sauce down your unsuspecting superior’s throat . . .
• And presto! 
• The boss is dancing the Macarena in his underwear before you can say . . .
• "Smile!"

• Your very own oak-panelled office. 
• A sleek new company car (handmade in Italy).
• A discreet monthly bonus of unmarked bills. 
• And all the Starbuck's coffee you can drink. 

A trip with the kids to Santa’s grotto is a day well spent. When you see your children’s faces light up with joy, you'll instantly forget that you paid the earth for this opportunity to stand shivering in a mile-long queue while being pestered by a little green man with big pointy ears. And that's just the store assistant. If your children have not yet specified their . . . Gift Requirement Orders, a quiet word with Santa will help you "magically" guess what they "really want." Don't let their shrieks and protests deter you. Now it's just a matter of convincing them they'll be even happier with the cheap knock-offs from that "cool" Xmas Madness Liquidation Outlet down the street.

Carry out these five simple steps and you'll be able to bounce out of bed on even the greyest December morn and look out at a world brimming with joy and Christmas spirit. 

Assuming you can see past the twelve-foot Santa.

Our man in Scotland Peter Cashmore hopes everyone gets what they want this Christmas. He personally has his heart set on the Super Depleted-Uranium-Pellet Tranquillising Siege Weapon.