You can keep your rigid Christmas traditions – I’ll be tucking into my Boxing Day carbonara | Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett

We've started building up our own yearly rituals, and asking what we really want to get out of the festive period

When people ask what I'm doing for Christmas this year, I've been replying, with not a little bit of glee, that we are going nowhere and entertaining nobody". The almost universal reaction is one of wistfulness, if not envy.

Taking the pressure off the festive season and choosing to please only yourselves is something many people fantasise about. Some people feel so hamstrung by responsibility to others (and dare I say it, perhaps are so used to that well-established feeling of Christmas martyrdom) that they never get the Christmas they secretly want.

Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett is a Guardian columnist