Decorations? As if. Turkey? Forget it. ’Tis the season to be miserable, says one holiday hater.

I dread Christmas. It’s full of empty promises: Santa doesn’t exist, snow never comes, Messrs Morecambe and Wise are dead, pine trees make a mess, it’s too foggy to see any stars, carol singers are just after cash, mulled wine gives you a headache, my family is bonkers.

I think my dislike of Christmas may have begun when my mother married for the fourth time (she’s now with number five). While she may have left the other husbands behind, I was still expected to keep in touch with them all, even though only one of them was technically my dad. As I got older, this task became more onerous. The three main days of Christmas would be spent in a car driving around the country dropping off presents, like an Amazon delivery van, with various former families. At each slightly awkward gathering, I would have to pretend I could remember my step-cousins’ names, look thrilled when opening a gift of notepaper and envelopes (which was then to be used to thank them for the notepaper and envelopes), and check my Casio watch to make sure we wouldn’t be late for the next family.

Eventually, it all became too much, and like some people cull their Christmas card lists, I had to cull my Christmastime families. I introduced a strict policy of one-in, one-out when it came to mum’s husbands.

Things improved slightly when my children were young, since I had an excuse not to drive all around the country each December, but as they got older, the glitter began to fade. Inevitably, each year they’d have a stray friend or two whose family were abroad or dead, and so we’d have to host them at our house. Of course, I’m not a monster, and so would have to buy the rather plain child at the end of the table a gift, pretend to be interested in his mock GCSE exam choices, and look fascinated as he showed me how to get to level two on Sonic The Hedgehog. My kids are now in their twenties, but still insist they believe in Santa Claus and thus expect a stocking on Christmas morning. They leave out the most enormous pillowcases to be filled with the kind of stuff they like – Supreme T-shirts, Aesop grooming products, Rick Owens sweatpants – which leaves me bankrupt each year.

So, this year, I am giving myself the Christmas I want. I have finally persuaded my other half, who loves a traditional Christmas, to forgo family and festivities and head abroad. I’ve booked us a few days at Soho House in Istanbul. Happily, it will be the only Turkey I’ll be sampling this season.

Here are five other reasons why ’tis the season of ill will:

First, I have an OCD approach to tidiness; I like everything to be perfect (look how nice and tidy MR PORTER appears on your screen). Christmas decorations are a minefield of messiness. I can’t bear trees that shed needles, baubles that shatter, wreaths that wilt, candles that drip, envelopes that release dozens of annoying stars on to the floor when you open them, cards that look messy on mantelpieces (I open mine, read the message, and put them straight in the bin). My ex-wife goes OTT with Christmas decorations and so I never felt the need to. When my kids came around on Christmas Eve, I would have a little ceremony to unveil my decoration scheme. As they stood there all excitedly I would open a box and take out an elegant black porcelain twig (I bought it in a minimalist furniture store in Milan) and place it gently on the shelf. “Ta-dah! What do you think, boys? Cool, huh?” It took a few years before they got the joke.

Second, another oddity about the festive season is why, when everyone is so busy at work trying to get everything done before the holiday, it’s deemed the perfect time to have a drinks party and see all the people you haven’t bothered seeing over the past 11 months. If you like people, why not invite them over in March, or September, or both? Why make them slog all the way over to yours when you know it’s the month they’ve got to meet deadlines, meet families, go late-night shopping and turn up to at least three office parties? As I write this, I’m looking at the week ahead’s diary: I have a work-related Christmas event every evening (sometimes two on the same night)… and, to be especially cruel, a few companies have decided to throw in some breakfast events this week, too. There’s going to be a lot of scrambled eggs and Solpadeine. A true friend at this time of year would merely send a text saying: “I love you. See you in January. No need to reply.”

Third, in many ways, the idea of gifts at Christmas has become outmoded (don’t tell my bosses at MR PORTER I said that as we sell loads of them). But we no longer need things, because we already have them. The idea of waiting all year in the hope of getting something you’ve wanted for yonks is as antiquated a notion as waiting for the novel you’re dying to read to come out in paperback first. In our fast-paced, buy-now society – nothing wrong with that, in my opinion – it seems greedy and unnecessary to let people run around desperately spending their hard-earned cash trying to find you something you don’t really need or already have. No one buys me nicer gifts than the ones I generously and frequently buy for myself all year round. And surely, all of you appreciate the pain that goes into pulling “happy face” when you open a real blooper of a present in front of the person who’s sweetly but misguidedly bought it for you. Secret Santa is the best option these days, and an increasingly popular one, too – at least you only have to feign joyous surprise once.

Fourth, music used to be the least of my worries; my Scrooge-ness somehow allowed the odd Mr Phil Spector mix or even 1980s Now! The Christmas Album to creep in without too much resistance. But no more. Our offices are on the top floor of a shopping mall, only accessible by three sets of escalators through said shopping mall, which means from November onwards every morning, lunchtime and evening I have to endure Christmas carols or chart-toppers from the previous three decades. At 8.00am on a Thursday morning, nursing a hangover from the previous night’s Christmas-drinks-with-strangers event, the last thing I want blasting cheerily through the mall’s speakers is “Ding Dong Merrily On High” as I wait in the queue for a double espresso.

Fifth and finally, the food. I won’t dwell on this. You’re all fully aware, even if you deny it, that the traditional Christmas fayre of turkey and all the trappings is a pretty dismal offering. Turkey tastes bland, you have to get up at an ungodly hour to put the beast in the oven – unsettlingly, large turkeys in baking trays look like small children covered in bacon strips – and everyone gets stressed trying to ensure all the bits and bobs that go with it are ready at the same time. It takes hours and hours to prepare, creates tear-inducing amounts of washing-up, and gets gobbled up in a matter of minutes. Fortunately, we have a different tradition in our family. A few of my in-laws refuse to eat any form of bird (not out of kindness, but they find birds creepy) and so for many years our Christmas lunch was sausage and mash. This I liked. However, as our children grew older they became aware that sausage and mash wasn’t as much of a treat as we pretended it was. Now we have spaghetti and shaved white truffles instead. The children still aren’t convinced – and stare longingly at turkey dinners posted by their friends on Instagram.

Bah Humbug, everyone.

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