Some say that the only box that MR PORTER is interested in is the white packaging that your stylish purchases are carefully placed into. Which is not entirely true. Because another box that we couldn’t take our eyes off this year was our television set. And while the age of streaming has disrupted the way we watch, there were still big moments and appointment views.

Festive traditions, those routines and recipes that make this time of year special, are all well and good… Unless they aren’t. In which case we’ve come up with a plan. In the spirit of self-improvement (and being generally nosy) we spoke to a few of our favourite chefs, restaurateurs and people with good taste, to find out how to level up our approach to hosting this December.

The new year arrives with its usual fanfare: the gym queues, the detoxifying juices, the promises we loudly declare and quietly abandon by 14 January. But this year, you deserve better. You deserve momentum. You deserve routines that don’t collapse the first time a biscuit crosses your path. Here are a range of ways to start the year brilliantly, backed by coaches, stylists, trainers and medics – and one or two life lessons learnt the hard way.

You think you’re fiercely competitive? You’ve clearly never played Connect 4 against me. So, as much as I love the holidays, it can all go wrong when someone pulls out a board game. If the point of family classics such as Cluedo and Monopoly is spending time together, then destroying opponents is not really in the spirit of things. And yet, every year, to exert board-game dominance, I find myself resorting to cheating. Assuming you’re made of sterner stuff, ethically speaking, and you’d rather rely on a combination of strategy and luck, here are some tips to stack the cards in your favour, so to speak.

Some say that the only box that MR PORTER is interested in is the white packaging that your stylish purchases are carefully placed into. Which is not entirely true. Because another box that we couldn’t take our eyes off this year was our television set. And while the age of streaming has disrupted the way we watch, there were still big moments and appointment views.

Festive traditions, those routines and recipes that make this time of year special, are all well and good… Unless they aren’t. In which case we’ve come up with a plan. In the spirit of self-improvement (and being generally nosy) we spoke to a few of our favourite chefs, restaurateurs and people with good taste, to find out how to level up our approach to hosting this December.