Christmas is the worst day of the year for house fires

1. OBESITY

In the UK and Ireland, we eat an average of 3,289 calories each on Christmas Day. That’s more than anywhere else in Europe. If you ate this much every day, you would put on 37kg (almost six stone) in a year! The fact that most of us also spend Christmas Day immobile on the sofa could make it even worse.

2. INSURANCE

Burglary rates tend to spike on Christmas Eve as thieves target homes full of presents. But on Christmas Day itself, most of us are indoors all day and burglary rates fall. That doesn’t mean you’re safe, though. Christmas is the worst day of the year for house fires, thanks to all the candles and flambéed Christmas puds.

3. POWER

The extra power needed to roast a turkey for five hours costs the country an extra £15m collectively. Factor in the cost of running the Christmas-tree lights all day and you get a national electricity bill that’s £18.75m higher for the day – nearly £7bn over a full year of Christmases.

4. ECONOMY

More than 97 per cent of the UK workforce has the day off on Christmas Day. Extended year-round, this would plunge the economy into crisis. The new economic superpowers would be those countries that don’t celebrate Christmas. These include China, Iraq, Iran, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, North Korea and – ironically – Turkey.