THIS time next week, you will be wondering why you got yourselves so worked up over it - but at the moment it is a fair bet that the forthcoming Christmas dinner is the cause of mounting tension in countless households.

But why? What is so daunting about a meal that, with the exception of a few added flourishes, should really be no different or difficult than your weekly Sunday lunch?

Just about everyone will have a tale to tell about a Christmas dinner gone wrong, or even one that against the odds went spectacularly well - but the fact is, if this is the be-all and end-all of a successful festive season, then something is wrong with our lives.

Of course, I speak as someone whose Christmas dinner will involve just five people, one of whom will not be indulging in a festive lunch as the majority of the rest of us know it because, with the exception of pigs in blankets, he steadfastly refuses to depart from the narrow food path he adopted from an early age.

There will be plenty of people preparing mentally and physically to cook for two or three or four times the number of folk they normally cook for, and fair enough, that could be a challenge. You don't want to let anyone down.

There is plenty of advice about preparing the perfect Christmas dinner available in print, broadcast and digital media at the moment, and having studied a goodly amount of it, I have come to the conclusion that 95 per cent (at least), is utter twaddle.

As a result of my research, I have picked up more than 100 cookery tips, all deemed essential to making sure the turkey or whatever meat is central to the meal is perfectly prepared.

Add the information on preparing and cooking vegetables, stuffings, puddings and the like, and there is enough sage (and onion) advice to compile a useful guide that would no doubt be a very popular Christmas book - hmmm, bet that has never been thought of before.

But it is the stuff about ambience that really winds me up, which is surely exactly the opposite effect that it should be having?

One of the articles I have read suggests that music, cutlery, lighting and crockery can all influence the general mood ahead of and during Christmas dinner.

One expert consulted for one of these articles suggests for instance that the musical accompaniment could be Katherine Jenkins, whose voice can apparently influence the way vegetables taste. At least that is how I interpret it.

Now, I have nothing against Katherine Jenkins, but she is not to my musical taste at all, and I doubt very much that she could for instance persuade me by using only the power of her dulcet tones, that Brussels sprouts are anything other than the most evil vegetable known to man.

Of course, one would have to be careful about the choice of music to accompany lunch. Last week, I highlighted the dangers inherent in listening to raucous rock music whilst ironing, and a Christmas dinner in the company of say, At The Drive-In's Relationship Of Command album, or Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band's Trout Mask Replica, is likely to be a testing experience.

Better perhaps, to have no music playing at all, so you and your family and/or guests can, you know, actually chat to each other over simply prepared, hearty food, in an atmosphere uncluttered by the musical swell of an orchestra, or a singer.

These days, fewer families - so other research tells us - sit down to eat regularly, a sad consequence of so-called modern life and its nebulous demands.

So Christmas dinner, the traditional focal point of the season, when gathering together as a 'tribe' is still a powerful instinct, is an ideal time to strengthen those familial bonds and friendships, and the less complicated the preparation, the better.

Sorry, but for a moment there I came over all 'It's A Wonderful Life'.

Speaking of which, it's good to see that a new poll does not have the aforementioned schmaltzy sugar-fest of a movie at the top of the list of the best Christmas films ever. That dubious honour goes to Home Alone.

In fact, I am now going to take advantage of my position as the writer of this column to declare that contrary to much popular belief, It's A Wonderful Life is in fact, the worst Christmas movie of all time.

There, I've said it. Something to discuss over Christmas dinner, perhaps?