Joyce Fegan: Forget the one-size-fits-all festive narrative and do what works for you

Just like Shane MacGowan and Kirsty MacColl's enduring work of art, Christmas, like life, is a bit more shades of grey than one red-and-green colour palette fits all

It's not all about giving and receiving, some people struggle around Christmas time.

By this day next week, you will likely be, depending on the kind of person you are, wrapping up the last of your presents or, buying the first tranche of them, when there will be just one day to go to Christmas Eve.

Whichever camp you fall into, or even if you land somewhere between the two, it's also likely that you'll have by this stage, been confronted with every emotion on the pie chart in the lead-up to The Big Day. Christmas, you see, has been on sale since the week of November 25 — the day the Late Late Toy Show aired. That's three weeks of 'Fairytale of New York' in our ears with another to go.