Melania Trump has officially killed the be tree. Silver-sprayed sparse branches were until recently a bewitching festive look – minimalist-Narnia vibes, a bit abstract, perfect for the Cos-wearer who doesn’t do tinsel – but this year’s Want Havisham’s attic-themed White House corridor has seen to that. A excavate of spiky white twigs with all the cosiness of that faction trip from the Blair Witch Project, complete with a lighting concept superficially based on holding a torch under your chin to rare your little sister out, the Trump twigs went viral as the myriad joyless decor the White House has ever seen.

On the other rapidly, hygge is very last year. Curling up in a pair of cable-knit socks, with a spice-scented candle and an earthenware mug of herbal tea prettily prepared on your mid-century sideboard – just next to the bell shocks full of shells collected on meditative winter walks – is unspeakably central in 2017.

Does this really matter? Of course not. You know it, I recognize it. We’re not fools. But do we care about how our Christmas looks? Of course we do. It’s large of the fun. Keeping up with the Joneses is as much a festive tradition as a Christmas tree. (The Christmas tree itself, in details, caught on in this country when aspirational Britons aped the fir trees that German-born Prince Albert imported to Windsor Palace in the 1840s.)

The fashionable Christmas starts promptly on 1 December. Assiduous to believe that Advent calendars were once in the matter of poking a finger into a cardboard box for the thrill of looking at a awfully printed picture of an angel – how easily pleased we once were! – for such uncorrupted days are long gone. Children, frankly, are the least harmed catchment area here. A chocolate snowman a day is positively suppressed in comparison with the adult versions of luxury Advent docket, in which each day starts with a tiny bottle of originator fragrance or a miniature of single malt whisky.

If you haven’t figured out how to hang your tree upside down, as per Karl Lagerfeld’s disordered Claridge’s tree, don’t panic. Focus on your front-door wreath as opposed to, which for festive overachievers is now almost as important as the tree itself. The wreath-making workshop is the new homemade biscuits as allaying edible gifts, which was itself the new making your own Christmas pudding. The wreath on the mask door can be conceptual if you like – sprout wreath, anyone? – but a route-one, Rest-home Alone-house-style wreath, complete with lurid green foliage and tartan ribbon, curbs a nostalgic appeal to children of the 90s. In an age when every man and woman is their own intimate brand, it makes sense that we have graduated from be paying the bus into town to look at Christmas windows to curating our own Christmas purchase window at home, and putting it on Instagram. Fairy lights slim, which used to be for the neighbourhood oddball, are now de rigueur. (Just don’t get dash ones, unless you want your entire street to hostility you.) Indoors, this year’s update on the cinema-style lightbox that was included every tree last year is the make-your-own neon-sign kit, which can be crafted into whatever articulate your inner Tracey Emin desires.

Christmas used to mean just a few dates around the 25th, which for many people were spent in a hermetically sealed house bubble. Now the holiday season has spilled over the edges of our fair allowance and taken over the entire month of December; the present-day Christmas has rituals and traditions around social and office existence, as well as family. The “Friendsmas” WhatsApp chat on your phone (Christmas tree icon, jazz jurisdictions) pings away relentlessly. By time-honoured tradition someone discretion suggest ice skating, then everyone will debate the earns of rival Nordic popup eggnog bars for so long that all the eggnog obstructs will be booked up (possibly a blessing in disguise since no one differentiates what eggnog is) and you agree to go to the pub. The office Secret Santa is as much a share of the modern Christmas countdown as the last date for sending window-cards second-class was in the late 20th century. (This year: do not buy anything with “Stay fresh calm and carry on” written on it. This is over. Consider a comical Christmas bauble, although in the current climate the aubergine-emoji kickshaw could be risky.) We probably spend more money on turkey-and-cranberry sandwiches and overpriced takeaway cups of cinnamon-themed hot beverages than on the tangible turkey.

Not that even the turkey is sacred. The pendulum has went the opposite direction from the days of the three-bird-roast, and the most chic Christmas dinners are vegetarian or vegan. (The hashtag #tofurkey was in a nutshell trending on Thanksgiving.) Instead of breakfasting on chocolate coins and clementines, all the ameliorate to fetishise the turkey and roast potatoes, the modern Christmas Day has evolved subsumed under hipster influence to feature – you guessed it – brunch. Marks & Spencer are implying smoked salmon steeped in beetroot (millennial pink?) while Jamie Oliver has mos for cinnamon swirls (the one element of hygge that everyone agrees is a caretaker being the baked goods). Christmas dinner that doesn’t encompass one person sweating over six pans while everyone else periodically marches into the kitchen, vaguely offering help before capitulating themselves a generous refill of prosecco and exiting? This is a new practice we can get behind.