This year I am adapting my own rituals – and with them, hopefully, the landscape of my brain - as the ultimate gift to myself

It’s the last fortnight of December, time to reappraise the traditions of shared holiday rituals.

Will Australians once more create kitchen-bound El Niño microclimates in their sweltering devotion to a Christmas turkey, or go with the smelly, if pleasurable, coolness of a prawns-on-ice buffet? Do we pretend to love a handmade noodle necklace more than receipt of an electronic lump of plastic we’ve been coveting all year? Should we indulge anti-vax, flat-earther Uncle Awful spouting theses of YouTubology at the dining table or scream “not this year, Satan” and instead book a package to Bali?