The turkey is basting, the veggies are prepped and the plant-based mulch is defrosting for the vegans. Soon, your extended family will arrive, their journeys so far unblighted by any mishaps, judging by the 67 WhatsApp messages giving you a blow-by-blow account of their progress. What can possibly go wrong?.
![[Laura Craik gives her top tips on how to NOT get cancelled this Christmas]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/22/19/93407555-14219263-image-a-9_1734895199261.jpg)
Four hours later, it transpires that the answer is 'quite a lot'. For while there was no disaster so great that Christmas was cancelled, you – the hapless hostess – most definitely have been. Your only consolation is that you're not alone. Also on the naughty step are your husband, your mother-in-law and poor Uncle Bert, whose 'crime' was to call his 19-year-old grand-niece 'a cracker', as the pair of them pulled one.
Apparently this is sexist, and your defence of Uncle Bert – 'He meant it as a compliment!' – has been taken as evidence of your own distinctly unwoke credentials. In today's strict court of public opinion, when it comes to actually expressing one, you really cannot be careful enough.
Wherever generations come together, the prospect of 'cancelling' – when a person believed to have done or said something inappropriate is shunned or boycotted – comes, too. Which makes Christmas an especially risky time. Forget prepping the dinner, this year my advice is to spend at least an hour on prepping an exclusion list of topics that must remain strictly off-limits.
