How do you look at the moment? It’s a loaded question, I know. “Asking me to choose one physical feature I feel bad about is like asking me to choose my least-favourite family member since lockdown,” says my friend F. An unscientific poll of friends and acquaintances reveals a tally of 2020 woes: worry wrinkles, “maskne”, “Zoomface”, “presidential” hair and Covid kilos. “Weird grief seeps out of me and my eyes are tired,” read one extremely relatable response.

Eating more, exercising less, sleeping badly, scrolling and worrying constantly… barring some boastful Instagram blowhards, we are all looking and feeling suboptimal as 2020 draws to a distinctly unfestive close. My own tally is standard but dismal: I look like a parboiled potato, in both face and body.

Thank goodness there are no parties to prepare for, but even so, an irrepressible impulse to bring some sparkle to the season is emerging. Decorations were defiantly displayed from mid-November and the top-scoring cheap champagne is all sold out. Our very human need for ritual and celebration is reasserting itself. That means we probably want to look a touch celebratory, too. Can a human suet ball become a sparkling bauble? I tried for a week, and this is how it went.

Clothes

At the best of times my look is charitably described as “utilitarian” – over the past nine months I have alternated three pairs of dreary trousers and a few shapeless tops. I have nicer clothes, but wearing them would feel as absurd as wearing a crinoline and powdered wig: what for? To take out the bin.

If there were ever a time for dressing to boost your mood, it’s now. Professor Carolyn Mair PhD, author of The Psychology of Fashion and founder of psychology.fashion, will be exchanging her velvet lockdown jogging bottoms for a navy dress with diamond cuff details that sparks positive memories for the festive season, even if only to celebrate with family online. “When we make an effort (for others), that has benefits for ourselves. Spending some time focusing on ourselves is very positive.

“It’s not only the effect it has on the wearer, it’s the effect it has on the observer,” she adds. I know this to be true from experience. My stylish friend Hugh, a food PR, posted pictures of his daily outfits throughout both lockdowns, from colourful Dries van Noten sweaters, chrome trainers and slogan tees to chic basics. Like a human Advent calendar, his looks cheered me daily… it also cheered him. “I went through a few bleak weeks when even my usually indefatigable optimism took a bit of a battering,” he told me. “Choosing what to wear and challenging myself to make it different gave me a reason to get out of bed in the morning.” He’s currently weighing up his Christmas jumper options and a “gorgeous black and cobalt-blue sequined leopard- print number” is top of the list.

Mair confirms that planning is its own pleasure. “Dopamine, the neurotransmitter we have always associated with pleasure, is actually associated with reward. It peaks and is triggered when we’re planning, seeking or searching for this reward. So, actually, telling people and sharing what we’re going to wear for Christmas is a very positive thing to do. We get motivated and in the mood to dress up.”

Buoyed up by her words and Hugh’s enthusiasm, I go wild and buy a new pair of trousers. They are black and elastic-waisted, but it’s a start.

Skin

Anxiety and insomnia have deepened my frown lines and given me bloodhound jowls. Winter has added the rheumy eyes and red nose of a minor Dickens character (the kind who has hidden someone’s great aunt’s will behind a stuffed fox).

Dr Anna Hemming, founder of Thames Skin Clinic and etrevous.com panel member confirms it’s been a bad time, epidermically speaking: “Stress has a massive impact on your body and the visible signs of that are on your skin.” Lockdown, masks and cold weather are also combining to create “a negative skin spiral.”

I know what I should do – drink water, wear broad-spectrum SPF, get more sleep and fresh air – and Hemming confirms. It’s more fun, though, to Google strange facial exercises. I try out a face gym workout on TikTok, a weird world of facial “whipping”, “hooks” and “cheek burpees” that leaves me red-faced and bemused.

I also acquire a Gua Sha massage stone, the reasonably priced gimmick du jour. It’s a piece of fake jade, which you are supposed to rub on your face to “smooth” it. Uncertain how to proceed, I watch a video tutorial. “You’re also really changing the function of your skin from the inside,” enthuses the beautiful young presenter, unscientifically. She seems, inexplicably, to be naked (it makes more sense when I realise this is Kourtney Kardashian). I’m wary of the instruction to “open your neck”, which seems alarming, but give it a go, then examine my face. My skin has not improved. Of course it hasn’t… I’ve had three hours’ sleep and I’m rubbing my face with a £5 stone.

Hemming suggests exfoliating with a product containing salicylic or glycolic acid to clear dead skin cells for that elusive glow. Guardian beauty goddess Sali Hughes recently recommended a £10 toner by Revolution that I’m tempted to try. Collagen supplements (Hemming explains they stimulate your body to produce more of it) are also good for middle-aged skin so I have started taking one. It tastes horrendous, but I’m glad my fishy, foamy breakfast broth may be having a positive effect.

Makeup

The only part of grooming I used to enjoy was poking department store lipsticks as I chatted to the counter lady, then entering a fugue state and leaving an hour later fully made up with a bag of product and “free with purchase” gift. It’s sad not to be able to do that in pandemic times, but beauty brands are trying to replicate the experience over Zoom.

I select an interactive “Look less tired” one-to-one video tutorial from Bobbi Brown: more festive options are available, but I know my limits. I’m slightly anxious waiting for makeup pro Hollie to come online – my unadorned face needs a content warning – but she’s warm, expert and unfazed, showing me techniques to apply concealer better, recommending colour corrector for my haunted undereye area and even complimenting my apparently unhooded lids (it’s a tiny win, but I’ll take it).

Of course, this isn’t as good as the in-person experience, but in some ways it’s better – you’re not surrounded by people asking where men’s boxers are and you can play around at your leisure.

Extremities

I have alopecia and wear a wig – and that’s my 2020 hair tip. It means no temptation to cut a fringe with nail scissors, or problematic roots. I ask my best friend, M, who has enough hair for both of us, to test the bestselling lockdown beauty product, an overnight hair treatment called Olaplex No 3.

While she does that, I paint my nails for the first time since my wedding (2014) and try some exfoliating socks. All the rage a few years ago, this is my first time dipping my feet in plastic socks full of, what? Is it acid? “If you leave it too long, will your feet will be eaten to the bone, like a piranha attack?” asks my husband, as I rustle uncomfortably.

“It feels very healthy, soft and shiny,” M reports back on the Olaplex. “I bet it would look great if I could be bothered styling it, but I don’t have the upper body strength for that.” (She’s struggling with long Covid.)

I send her a picture of my nails, a bright red called Apéritif, which I chose for its pleasant associations with my nightly bucket of wine. Forty-five minutes later, most of it has chipped, because I love scratching (working on a persistent itch has been my most reliable sensory pleasure in 2020).

The foot peel is bizarre – one foot sloughs off revoltingly, the other doesn’t budge. Honestly, this stuff just feels like housework and I already do more of that than I want.

Body

I have been letting the soft animal of my body love what it loves recently, and it really loves crisps. I could write a sonnet to multipacks of cheese and onion, the way their crunch gives punctuation to my shapeless days. I am, unsurprisingly, unfit and my trousers are tight, which tallies with my research: 39% of my poll respondents are unhappy with their weight or shape. Social media – “Not seeing as many normal people, but seeing stick people on Insta” as someone says – intensifies that.

I would like to move more. I taught myself to do a yoga headstand back in June which was fun, but since then I have been resting on my laurels, and by laurels I mean sofa.

I wonder if online morning classes would kickstart my day, so with some trepidation, I enrol for a trial with Blessed Yoga. My first 8am class is described as “a great challenge” (a massive red flag) and indeed, it is expertly, compassionately brutal. The second class, at 6.30, yes, am, is marginally gentler, but after 40 minutes I sink to my stomach and crawl behind the table for a breather. I feel quite elated for the rest of the day, but mainly because none of it is spent moving from “high plank” to “low plank”. The yogis also kindly let me try their festive “Blessed Bum” workout: I watch it while wrapped in a heated blanket eating chocolates I bought as a present, but decided to keep.

More than any self-improvement, quick or slow, what really interests me is learning how to show compassion for our imperfect pandemic bodies. Dr Helena Lewis-Smith, of the Centre for Appearance Research at the University of the West of England, is researching the impact of lockdown on disordered eating and has reviewed emerging research on body image in the pandemic. She highlights how the combined impact of intense social media use, #fitspiration content, constrained opportunities to use our bodies in enjoyable ways and the loss of control and agency we have all experienced this year, has created the perfect climate for body dissatisfaction.

Her advice is sane, and gentle: remind yourself bodies change constantly, use yours in ways that feel good and, above all, practise self-compassion. “It’s been a really difficult year. We’re doing the best we can – don’t torture yourself. If you want to have some cake or a hot chocolate in the evening, do it. Why not? It’s a form of self-care.”

I do want cake, obviously. I also want to adopt Lewis-Smith’s other piece of advice: “Focus on what your body does for you and what it allows you to experience. It’s about treating your body as an instrument, not an ornament. Our bodies are amazing; they are dealing with all this really well.”

One of the nicest things this week has been people telling me face- and body-related experiences they really enjoy: the meditative calm of a manicure, rich Korean cleansers, heated eyemasks or the ubiquitous wild swimming. Doing – and eating and wearing – what feels good is the best way to bring some sparkle to your Christmas. Now if you’ll excuse me, it’s time for my breakfast crisps.

Follow Emma on Twitter @BelgianWaffling