Christmas Survival Guide: How to avoid those long-lost relatives

In the latest of our Christmas survival guide features on getting through the holiday period unscathed, we advise you how to cope with the bane of every holiday season: the in-laws.

There are some things that happen on Christmas Day that would never happen on the other 364 days of the year. You collect chocolate from oversized socks. You don't get dressed until around 6pm. You watch choirs sing on television. Most miraculously of all, you allow complete strangers into your house.

Technically, however, they aren't exactly strangers; they're your long-lost cousins twice removed and this time, they've come bearing gifts and tiresome stories about the long drive in. As they arrive, you feign enthusiasm, as you already know what's in their gift wrapping - the same bloody gift you receive every year: Mikasa goalkeeper gloves and a football pump kit. Sigh...

Before you know it, you're exchanging your gifts (anything will do to get them out of the house ASAP) and nodding politely as Aunt Marie and Uncle Derek regale you of how tall you've gotten, even though you stopped growing about 12 years previously.

If they're particularly aloof and come from 'the schticks', they'll also spend at least 10 minutes ogling your television and wondering if your PS3 controller is some sort of toy spaceship.

Clearly something must be done, so here are our tips for getting your unwanted guests out of the house ASAP or, if you're lucky, ensuring that they're too afraid to even enter.

Pretend you're really sick: We're not talking about awkwardly coughing into a tissue upon their arrival - you'll want to go the whole hog to really pull this trick off.

Apply pasty white makeup, tape a 'Quarantine' sign outside your door, hire a friend to dress as a doctor to follow you around or even just play a tape recorder of worrying sounds emanating from the toilet; all these are viable options to ensure that your guests won't want to catch your plague-like symptoms.

Go on holiday (or at least pretend to): Why not take a drive to the airport on Christmas Eve? It doesn't even matter if you're going anywhere, you can just stuff a couple of pillows in your suitcase, enjoy around four cups of coffee upstairs in Terminal 4 and before you know, your barely recognisable relatives will have eventually got the message and stepped off your porch.

Fill your house with cats: If all else fails, head to the crazy cat lady from down the road (admit it, we all know one) and explain that you're only going to need her beloved beasts for an hour or so. Having wrangled her nine cats, you'll want to let them loose in your living room, stinking up the place and knocking your prized ornaments from pillar to post.

No it's not desirable and yes, you're probably stuck with that new smell for the rest of your life but let's face it, it'll be a much more pleasurable experience than sitting through soul-sucking silences across from your apparently biologically linked smiley strangers.

Cats, the Black Death or an utterly pointless trip to the airport - the choice is yours.