At the risk of sounding like a complete tosser, I recommend that you read the second chapter of my last book (They F*** You Up) before you embark on the coming festivities. Apart from making the perfect present for someone who you feel could do with a bit more self-awareness, it also offers an effective way of detoxifying the experience of having to be in close proximity to your nearest and 'dearest'.
Families are very like the work of a dramatist. Each of us is accorded a scripted role and tightly directed in its performance. From the moment we gather for Christmas, our families force us to put on uncomfortable psychological costumes and to sing and dance to their tune.
Never mind that you may have long since ceased to be the clever one or the fatty, the attention-seeker or moaner, your family treat you just as they always did. Within minutes of walking through the door, you are back in the nursery. The achievements and independence of adulthood are swept away and you have become the monkey rather than the organ grinder of your personality.
But this is not inevitable. The secret is to become the author of your lines in the family drama. First establish what will be expected of you by the other actors. Begin by writing down a list of all the characteristics you believe your family attributes to you.
Some of the identities will be projected on to you by all the family: not only do both your parents treat you as terminally lazy or untidy or selfish, so do your siblings. But others will be specific to particular family members or coalitions thereof. Now comes the fun. Instead of acting in the predictable manner, you can do the opposite.
If you are known for buying stingy presents, give ostentatiously expensive ones. If you are notorious for never doing any washing up, be the first at the sink after every meal.
Part of the fascination will be the initial failure to recognise any change. Exactly as actors in a real drama would be amazed and scared stiff if one of the players suddenly started deviating from the script, so with your family.
At first, they will simply continue to attribute the old persona. Then they will begin to gang up and try to impose it on to you, probably by mocking your attempts to wash up or making a joke of the fact that you were out of bed before them. But instead of being infuriated, gently remind them of the new evidence to the contrary. At worst, you will have had some amusement in playing your game. At best, who knows, this Christmas could be the start of a new, more adult relationship with your family.
