For the last decade, my favourite thing to do on Christmas Eve has been to scroll the #duvetknowitschristmas hashtag on Twitter - a treasure trove of weird, wonderful and downright uncomfortable-looking sleeping arrangements, shared online by tired travellers from the study, bathroom and kitchen floors of their over-stuffed family homes.
The hashtag is the brainchild of London-based writer Rhodri Marsden, and has always been funny, relatable, and quintessentially British. And very pre-pandemic.
Harassed parents, in-laws, grandparents, aunts and other senior members of the population would dig out their most archaic, back-of-the-bedding-cupboard old duvet covers to make up the fifth or sixth makeshift bed in their crowded house over Christmas: sometimes in a hallway, stairwell or shed.
Houses would be crammed with people in the run up to Christmas Day, necessitating creative sleeping arrangements in a way that sadly won't be mirrored in most British homes this festive season, as the Covid pandemic limits indoor gatherings and last-minute travel bans ruin plans - leaving many people stuck at home alone.
So to brighten up this unusually sombre Christmas, I thought I'd round up some of my favourite, laugh-out-loud 'Duvet Know Its Christmas' tweets below. Rhodri will be doing his own, far superior 'Best Of' roundup too - sharing his all-time top 100 from the last 10 years from 8.20pm this evening (24 December) so don't forget to check out Twitter later.
