It may have been the decade when money talked, but when Jilly Cooper decided to put pen to paper to produce a survival guide to the festive season in the 1980s, Christmas was a much simpler time.

The Ilkley-born novelist decided to offer her thoughts on the perils and pitfalls of everything from present buying to dealing with relatives, playing party games and managing difficult guests, but when she recently came to update it, the world seemed a very different place.

"There have been so many social and economic changes related to the festive season in the last two decades," says Jilly, whose blockbusters include the likes of Wicked! and Polo. "It did need updating, although much of what I had written back then remains universally true – women still feel martyred, while children come home to veg out and men are stressed out from work.

"However, parents are increasingly facing a world where children are more demanding because of the adverts directed at them. My vision of Christmas used to be a sea of overpriced plastic. Now it's a sea of overpriced computer games. Toys are all computerised
now. It's all alien to innumerable grans like me.

"Children are bombarded with television," she continues. "If they get a toy that's five minutes out of date then they want the next one. Poor parents will be bankrupted.

"There's the terrible blackmailing by children who want to receive toys in the top 10. There didn't used to be that dreadful pressure which starts in September that to keep little Johnny quiet you're going to
have to buy him all these awful toys.

"The secret of a happy Christmas is to have at least 10 televisions in the house. And in every room, you have to have a DVD.

"Society is very different today, but I had to draw a line somewhere. There are no chapters on how to cope as a working wife or a lone parent, or who should shoulder the burden of cooking and putting the fairy on the Christmas tree in a gay relationship."


While there were some areas even the author of The Man Who Made Husbands Jealous wasn't prepared to tackle, she admits that with the seeming ever rising obesity statistics, the image of a "fat Father Christmas having a great blow-out has become rather old-fashioned" and with the concept of the nuclear family having been lost in the mist of time, it has become an occasion when people are increasingly treading on eggshells.

"Families have become more extended, so you have more stepfamilies, the deserted wife, the deserted husband and more people seem to be fighting people now at Christmas because there's more to fight about," says Jilly, who turned 70 this year.

"But there are lots of people having parties this year and inviting the neighbourhood. Maybe they are doing it because they think next year they're not going to have any money left."

This year, Jilly, who is married to military publisher Leo Cooper, who suffers from Parkison's disease, will be celebrating Christmas with her son Felix, daughter Emily and her clutch of grandchildren at the family home in Gloucestershire.

As for presents, Jilly's assistant has been throwing catalogues at her since August, trying to inspire her with ideas.

"Choosing the right present is an intellectual exercise," she says. "The trouble is we get things, we hide them and then we can't find them at Christmas."

While Jilly, who is currently working on her next novel Village Horse, has long been portrayed as the scatty novelist, in a world where official celebrations have come under the scrutiny of politically
correct watchdogs, she's happy to defend those who want to have a jolly good time. "There's this ridiculous political correctness
in our country," she says, citing the recent reports that one school in Brighton decided Santa's red suit was a symbol of "modern commercialism" and was going to dress him in green instead.

"I'm a great believer in traditional Christmas. It makes me very angry that here we are living in England – we should jolly well be allowed to have our own customs."

Jilly Cooper's How to Survive Christmas, priced £6.99, is available to buy from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop on 0800 0153232 or online at www.yorkshirepostbookshop.co.uk. Postage and packing is £2.75.