NOW repeat after me... IT'S ONLY ONE DAY. Only one day to cope with before the shops open again. Two at the most if you don't live near a supermarket which opens on Boxing Day. So there's absolutely no need to load your trolley with enough sugar to satisfy the needs of a regiment of builders who like their tea with six spoonfuls of the stuff, nor is there any need to elbow old aged pensioners in the ribs to grab those last two loaves of Hovis sliced white. Even if you run out of bread or sugar you will survive the day, it's not a catastrophe. Of course, you're not going to take any notice of me are you? And I'm probably not going to take any notice of me either. We all do it. We all buy six pints of cream when we only need one. We all buy approximately twice as many sprouts than we need, just in case. Just in case of what? Are we presuming that a convention of sprout fans will pop in unexpectedly? No, of course not. It's all part of the collective Christmas panic psyche. A terror of actually running out of food when our sane self knows that there's enough food in the house to feed the whole street for a week. We gild the lily unashamedly, even though we know our guests won't want four different puddings because they're already stuffed with the main course. And the worst thing is, where do we put the stuff? The larder's full. The cupboards are groaning. The fridge and the freezer are fairly stuffed themselves. Open any door in the kitchen and a tangerine will roll out. We resort to garages and wardrobes and then forget, so in mid-summer we are surprised when a packet of dried figs falls out of our underwear drawer. And all of it is just for that one day. Because woe-betide anyone who touches anything meant 'for Christmas' on Christmas Eve. Men stand around starving, even though there's half a ton of protein in plain view, pies and biscuits and cakes are overflowing on the worksurfaces and the smell of roasting, baking, boiling and steaming is driving them wild. They slink away and surreptitiously crack a nut or two, or attack a box of after-dinner mints in secret. I know a man who's wife nearly divorced him because he came home late on Christmas Eve from the pub and ate the Christmas Day ham slapped between pieces of bread. But who could blame him, when his sole sustenance that day had been two packets of pork scratchings. It can't be helped, it's a condition which affects all of us. I had to stop myself this evening from buying a jar of pickled walnuts. I don't like them. Nobody in the family likes them. Yet I buy them every year and they stay on the shelf, all lonely, like little preserved kidneys floating in a noxious liquid until I throw them away in July or August. I'll probably buy them on Christmas Eve along with a last minute chocolate log and the dreaded marked down giant salmon. Having said this, there are things you mustn't forget to buy because you are concentrating on exotic foodstuffs. Number one, salt. Boring old salt. Not so boring when you find you haven't got any, and have to resort to rubbing it off salted peanuts to give the carrots a bit of a flavour. Soft drinks. Don't wake up on Christmas morning and realise that the only non-alcoholic drink in the house is the water in the tap. There may be someone you know who doesn't drink. However unlikely that is. Toilet paper. Even more boring, but there really is no substitute, apart from kitchen roll which isn't all that elegant. I once ran out on a bank holiday weekend in the days when the shops didn't open on a Sunday nor a holiday. We had six friends staying so I had to confess. In the end my friend Terry got desperate enough to nick some from the pub we went to at lunch time. To get it out without being detected he wrapped a whole roll of it round his middle so that he looked like a Michelin man. When he unravelled himself he insisted on keeping his spoils and handing them out one sheet at a time. Washing up liquid. Invaluable. Just try washing greasy roasting pans in Daz and you'll know what I mean. I could go on. Milk, tea, coffee, cat food. Oh, don't ever forget the cat food, because your life will be hell. They may pretend for the whole year that they'd give their left paw for a plateful of roast turkey but on this one day all they will want is a helping of rabbit and chicken Whiskas which was left off your shopping list. I could add dog food, but dogs are far more obliging when it comes to eating. They won't mind cold giblets. The cats only like them hot, preferably attached to their owner. I read an agony aunt letter the other day which made me smile. 'My mother-in-law is coming for Christmas this year and she always criticises my gravy, which upsets me and ruins the meal.' The particular agony aunt gave a gentle 'live and let live, it's only one day' answer. Personally, I'd have said: 'Get a life you stupid woman, it's only one day out of 365 and perhaps your gravy isn't up to much and anyway that's what mother-in-laws are for, gravy judging and sneering at the sprouts.' But then I've never been much of an agony aunt even though I did it for one paper for a while when the real one was away sick.

Finally, I give you a few Christmas tips for the cook from my own kitchen. Firstly, don't allow alcohol to touch your lips before the meal is on the table. For the past several years I've not been allowed near so much as a smidgen of the hard stuff and I'm grateful for it. Well, not actually grateful. Very resentful in fact, but it does prevent me falling into the gravy or forgetting to take the giblets out of the bird and having to pretend it's a Jamie Oliver recommendation for keeping the turkey moist. Secondly, if you serve your guests enough alcohol before the meal, preferably with an innocuous fruit punch into which you've snuck a bottle of vodka, they won't care if the sprouts are burnt. Thirdly, I'm convinced that very few people actually like Christmas pudding, so all you need to do is produce one, set fire to it, carry it in triumphantly, then remove it, put it back in the freezer and use it for next year. Then serve a cheesecake or some fancy store- bought ice cream. Fourthly, never, ever, attempt a new recipe which you haven't tried. Parsnip and artichoke soufflé may sound wonderful on paper, but not when you've got a hundred other things to cook and when you bring a dish to the table which needs eating immediately, only the man of the house is doing his annual carving of the turkey with all the slowness and delicate meticulousness of a heart transplant surgeon. So, Merry you know what to you all. I'm off to search out a stuffing recipe that incorporates pickled walnuts, and so far I've had no luck.