The M&S shoppers' guide to an overpriced Christmas

STUCK in for Christmas just like everyone else? Driven by the overwhelming need to feel in some way superior? Get down to Marks and Sparks for your big shop: 

Have your Daily Mail ready

A copy of Britain’s most politely bigoted newspaper tucked under your arm not only sends the right smug signals, it doubles up as a weapon. Roll up and slam into the throat of any 80-year-old woman trying to reach the blanched sprouts before you do. Telegraph or Times also acceptable, but not the Express.

Don’t forget the essentials

Grab every pre-packaged, pre-chopped vegetable under the sun, stack a pyramid of profiteroles higher than a toddler, get tubs of chilled sauces, then pretend to every dim twat around the dinner table you made the lot. Whenever they say ‘divine roasties’ pat yourself on the back for spaffing £300 on one dinner.

Extras make the meal

Not just extra dishes, but extra adjectives. Honey-roast chantenay carrots for your irritatingly vegan daughter, smoked Atlantic salmon on buckwheat blinis for your brother-in-law, and what’s Christmas without a succulent Queen Bess five-bird roast?

Swoop on bargains

Just because you’re wilfully spending twice as much on food as you have to doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy discounts. When the shellfish platter’s reduced to £38, get both elbows in there and fight to the death. You’re not just any vulture, you’re an M&S vulture.

Blame any problems on staff

If anything goes wrong, find the closest innocent shelf-stacker risking their life for your retail experience and go in hard. After all, the absence of pigs-in-blankets at 4pm on Christmas Eve is a personal fault of theirs, and what is their purpose if not to be berated?

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How to pretend you're gutted about not seeing family this Christmas

ARE you thrilled that the pandemic has got you out of spending Christmas with your family but don’t want to look like a heartless bastard? Here’s how to pretend you’re incredibly sad about it.

Make a big deal about the sacrifice you’ve made

Hopefully you got in quickly enough to say you were bowing out of family Christmas so your siblings could make up the three-household total with your parents. Pretend it was an agonising decision, even though in reality it took 0.2 seconds to make.

Overspend on presents

You’ve probably saved loads of money this year thanks to Covid, so why not lavish it on presents for the family? They’ll be sent through the post so their entire front room will be full of cardboard, but who gives a f**k as you won’t be there to clear it up.

Assure them you’ll miss watching the Mrs Brown’s Boys Christmas special

All families have Christmas rituals, usually ones that make 80 per cent of the people present want to slit their wrists. Tell your parents you’ll miss sitting down to an evening of good old-fashioned entertainment when really you’ll be passed out from too much rum and cheese by 6pm.

Organise a Christmas Zoom

It wouldn’t be 2020 without a long, awkward and irritating catch up via laptop. Don’t waste your Christmas Day on it though: pretend to have a dodgy wifi signal after five minutes and get back to enjoying your Christmas lunch of Celebrations and After Eights instead.

Pretend you’ll go on a special holiday together next year

Ensure your family know you love spending time with them by talking up a plan to go on a big holiday together next year. The reality is you’ll never organise it because you’ll spend all your annual leave getting shitfaced in Barcelona with your mates, but they don’t need to know that now.