I’m with the Europeans – Christmas Eve is much better than Christmas Day. Here’s why...

I can’t be bothered with Christmas Day. Don’t get me wrong: my tree has been up since 1 December, I’ve mainlined carols in minor keys and sent out cards until the hideous cost of stamps ran me dry – but I’m more of an Advent person, and for me, that culminates in Christmas Eve, the day much of continental Europe exchanges presents.

Conversely, the 25th feels oddly pressured, like being trapped in a snow globe where everyone Must Smile At All Times. It’s no wonder the British have so many arguments, whether at the table or over board games: we are terrible at accepting anything less than an ideal. There was the Christmas my parents’ oven failed, and the turkey had to be cooked by an obliging neighbour (who was presumably, and quite sensibly, having toast instead).

One year, I had my parents to my old flat, my post-morning run smugness punctured by my mother observing that the garden wall had blown down overnight. My husband’s family was once burgled on Christmas night; a policeman managed to stop the thief by observing that Father Christmas does not usually carry his sack over his shoulder or travel by bike.

I am entirely with the Scandiwegians and other deeply sensible people who make the most of the day before: the anticipation is always better. At my in-laws’ village, Christmas Eve is time for a party: the Mummers take their play around the houses, and friends stay on for a drink afterwards. You’ve finished work. The tree is lovely. Slow, unthinking vegetable prep while listening to carols. The idea of snow, even if there isn’t any. All there is to do is wait and enjoy – I say this with the caveat that my husband and I split Christmas between our families. This year, it’s over-18s plus dog until my nieces arrive on Christmas morning.

Christmas Eve is soundtracked by carols: the morning by a transfer of a tape recording of my school carols from the Nineties (the over-annunciation of each syllable brings to mind 25 tiny Princess Margarets), and the afternoon is Carols from King’s on Radio 4 listened to in total silence with my dad, as his dad did before him. This will also be recorded on BBC Two to watch later, we do not question why.

My book club borrows the Icelandic tradition of Jolabokaflod, where you give and receive something to read on Christmas Eve. I’ll take my book with me, and I’ve got a book each for the house. The dog, sadly, is illiterate, and will instead have a squeaky toy. These will be read while falling asleep in front of a crackling fire while candles threaten to melt into garlands of holly and ivy picked up in the woods. At some stage, I will disappear upstairs to wrap stockings for the adults. Everyone needs gift-wrapped batteries.

For extra Scandi atmosphere, Radio 3 is airing a two-hour “Hygge Christmas” at 7pm, just in time for drinks. M&S does a very good alcohol-free mulled wine, although if you’ve got Radio 3 on, you are duty-bound to call it glühwein, so I might mix up a pot of that while the others get stuck into the fizz.

In the evening, it’s time for a slow, light supper and television. This is a night for the comfortingly familiar rather than the new or flashy, which can be recorded to watch later in the week or forgotten about. Circling it in the Radio Times with a big pen is ritual enough. There are more candles in vast, Fire Service-worrying numbers.

In this, I was indoctrinated by Norwegian neighbours and the feast of St Lucia, which is very high drama with white robes, green wreaths and candles, like a non-murderous take on the film Midsommar. My mother-in-law dances with risk even further by having real candles on her tree, lit on Twelfth Night as though daring the entire house to burn down.

Ghost stories, too, are for Christmas Eve. Another instalment of Mark Gatiss’s ghost story adaptations, and A Muppet Christmas Carol with Kermit as Bob Cratchit’s reminder of there being “one more sleep” til Christmas, and the only time that that phrase manages not to be toe-curlingly revolting.

I’ll stretch that magic out a bit longer and go to the midnight service, that lovely hour when pagan and Christian merge via the village pub. The British have long managed to blithely balance the presence of darkness, cold and evergreen with the frankly implausible concept of those occurring in Jerusalem, Light coming out of the dark is one of the key tenets of the Christmas story – and one of the loveliest aspects of Christmas Eve.

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