The strangest festive customs and most disappointing gifts.

Christmas is pretty weird. We won’t go into all of the reasons here, but, yeah – a starting point might be the rotund man delivering presents down a chimney. More inconceivable than that, though, is the consumption of Brussel sprouts. These green, acrid spheres would surely disappear were it not for the holiday season. Anyway, instead of meeting these strange traditions head on with some semblance of normality, we tend to add our own peculiar rituals for good measure. Here, we ask a few members of the MR PORTER staff about the strange traditions their families have invented over the years. And, while we had them on the topic, we also had them divulge the worst gifts they have ever received.

**MR JIM MERRETT  **Chief Sub-Editor

In my house when I was growing up, we weren’t allowed to open any presents until my dad had finished his breakfast. Every other day of the year, my dad’s breakfast consisted of a cup of coffee if he was lucky. Christmas Day, it became a feast of Henry VIII proportions: several helpings of porridge, toast, sausage rolls, mince pies – anything he could get his hands on, washed down with endless rounds of tea and all guzzled at an agonisingly slow pace. Now I’m a dad, I fully intend keeping up my end of the bargain.

Never show any interest in anything ever or you will from that moment onwards always receive gifts linked to whatever that thing is. I watched The Simpsons once in front of my mum and I was on the receiving end of Bart Simpson boxer shorts until I was 34. Now, because I ride a bike to work, everything is cycling related; if it isn’t for my bike (admittedly useful), it has a bike slapped on it.

MR DAN ROOKWOOD US Editor

The Christmas Forkful. I first invented this more than 20 years ago (partly inspired by Willy Wonka’s chewing gum meal in Charlie And The Chocolate Factory) and it has been a tradition on the male side of the family ever since. This involves carefully layering a fork with a little piece of absolutely everything on the Christmas dining table – including all condiments – so that you can taste the entire meal in one enormous mouthful. Now that this brilliant idea is finally being mass-communicated, I fully expect it to go viral. Y’welcome.

In a classic case of re-gifting, I gave my brother some fake designer aftershave one year which, like a mug, I’d bought from a dodgy geezer selling it out of suitcase on Oxford Street. My brother then wrapped this up and gave it back to me. Except he’d used half of it and topped it up with water. The scent was greatly improved by its dilution.

**MR CHRIS ELVIDGE ** Associate Editor

There is one aspect of the festive experience that my family takes very seriously, and that is drink. Nothing novel there. But, unlike other households I suspect – my great uncle keeps a record, scrawled on the back of an envelope, of the various bottles to have emerged from the cellar throughout the day: Taylor’s Port ’82, Krug ’94, Chateau Latour ’06 (three bottles thereof), Chateau D'Yquem ’86, and so on. It occurs to me as I write this that if I am to carry on this tradition in anything approaching the proper style, then I should really start laying down some wine.

The worst presents I’ve ever received have been the ones I’ve wanted the most. I became aware of Mighty Max Skull Mountain while watching adverts on TV as a young boy. It was a toy that can best be described it as a sort of doll’s house for boys in which demons and dragons take the place of dolls. It really was a complete and utter piece of tat, but I could not resist the power of advertising, and I wanted it. I cannot remember a desire more intense than the desire I felt for Mighty Max Skull Mountain, nor a greater disappointment than when, on Christmas Day 1993, I was finally able to play with it.