IF your plans for the next few days involve sipping mulled wine, carving up a goose, pulling crackers, playing board games and unwinding in front of a Christmas movie, then be warned.

Indulging in any of the above means you're frightfully common.

Side plates at the dinner table? Ghastly. Christmas cards hung on string? A social faux pas. And don't even think about serving up Christmas pudding with brandy butter. Anything other than custard is naff, darling.

Christmas is a time for traditions, but it seems one man's tradition is another's cringeworthy social clanger. In his guide to avoiding a common Christmas, interior designer and socialite Nicky Haslam offers 50 do's and don'ts of the festive season, from the predictable - surely everyone knows coloured Christmas trees and family photographs on cards are naff - to the surprising. I wasn't aware it was common to attend a shooting party, but according to Haslam it is. And while crackers look nice, pulling them is frowned upon. As is organised fun, apparently.

He says Christmas decorations should be traditional, (an over-styled tree is vulgar), and cards should be placed in a basket, with the most impressive ones at the top. While fairy lights are tacky, candles on the table are acceptable, but going to a restaurant for Christmas lunch (which should be called dinner, even though it's usually common to call lunch dinner), is a no-no. Taking a beach holiday over Christmas is common too.

Mulled wine, even the home-made stuff, is common, oysters, foie gras and caviar are pretentious, but turkey is less naff than goose.

Much of Haslam's list had me rolling my eyeballs. Who knew it was the done thing to invite housekeepers, nannies and other staff to the dinner table? And if it's common to give electronic gadgets as presents, what are you meant to give 80per cent of teenagers?

But I'm with him on Christmas-themed clothes - they are awful. And some of his "rules" were strangely familiar. Trees, he says, should be decorated the day before Christmas Eve, which was something my mum always insisted upon, and thank you letters, something else she was a stickler for, should sent by post rather than email. Quite right too. Buying gift labels is common, as they should be cut from last year's Christmas cards, which was a festive ritual in our house every year, using mum's pinking shears, or the big zig-zag scissors as I remember them.

Whether your Christmas is common or refined, I hope it's a happy one. Or I should say a merry one, since apparently it's common to say "Happy Christmas"...