Our guide to overdosing on food, drink and merriment in style this Christmas.

Over-indulgence during the festive period is inevitable. The weather is cold, your parents’ fridge is full, and you are slowly growing tired of their company. The only thing for it is to hibernate, eat your body weight in meat and cheese, and drink your way through the incessant conversation about the current state of politics. Indeed, putting on weight and damaging your liver is a given. What is truly surprising, however, is just how creative we can be in our bacchanalian exploits. See how the members of the MR PORTER staff will be getting in touch with their hedonistic side this winter, below.

Of all the romantic poets, I feel the most kinship with Mr John Keats. I mean, most of the rest were terrible bores, especially when it came to food. I couldn’t be Lord Byron, who existed on soda water and boiled potatoes, nor Mr Percy Shelley, who wrote a treatise on the natural diet. But Mr Keats, well, he knew of the sensuous joy of food, its ability to lift a weary soul. Remember his description of eating a nectarine? No, well let me remind you: “Talking of Pleasure, this moment I was writing with one hand, and with the other holding to my Mouth a Nectarine – good God, how fine. It went down soft, pulpy, slushy, oozy – all its delicious embonpoint melted down my throat like a large beatified Strawberry.” I feel something similar about bacon. I don’t eat it enough. This Christmas, I will rectify this. Perhaps a sausage, too.

Since the 1990s, my family have gotten together with our oldest friends and eaten large quantities of lasagne on Christmas Eve. I say my family and friends, but to be honest it’s usually myself that puts most of it away. I’m talking seconds, thirds, fourths – and then some. Still, as everyone knows that a monster is on the loose at this time of year, we prepare much more of the stuff than we need and, yes, there’s always some left to have (hot or cold – by that point in December, I’m quite indiscriminate) for breakfast. It’s a charming, Christmas card scene: the unwrapping of presents, the playing of carols, the crusty smears of ragu at each corner of the mouth. I sincerely hope nobody else does this.

I enjoy overpriced green juices, skinny almond milk turmeric lattes and workouts at Barry’s Bootcamp. My body is a temple and I am always in control. That is until you put a cheese board in front of me and I lose all sense of self, and inevitably gorge as if there is no tomorrow. Cheese is the arrow to my Achilles heel, my kryptonite. I could quite happily trade in all the other festive foods (and company for that matter) for a good cheese board. So, undoubtedly this is what I am looking forward to most on Christmas Day.

For 364 days of the year, I yield to social pressure and refuse to drink before noon. On the one day of the year when it’s not frowned upon, I reserve the right to go absolutely ballistic. I’ll be starting the day with a Bailey’s on ice, moving on to champagne at breakfast, sampling a few craft ales while preparing lunch, working my way through white, red and dessert wines during the meal itself and then finishing with a glass of port followed by a glass of brandy. If I drank like this at any other time, I’d be taken to one side by a concerned friend and told I’ve got a problem. That’s the magic of Christmas, I suppose.

Tis the season for family bonding, holiday cheer and decking all the halls. But carol singing and entertaining isn’t my thing. Luckily, we live in an age of endless options. I’m speaking, of course, of my favourite Christmas holiday pastime: the binge-watch. This time-honored pastime doesn’t have to be anti-social, but I much prefer to curl-up comatose post-Christmas dinner in solitary confinement and ruthlessly make my way through every new drama TV has to offer. This year, it’ll be season 2 of The Crown on Netflix, BBC’s The Miniaturist, Big Little Lies on Sky Atlantic… the list is endless.