One of the many curiosities of the British Christmas is that while most of us are familiar with the chorus to Slade’s 1973 hit Merry Xmas Everybody, you’d be hard pushed to find anyone who remembers the rest of the words, other than a nagging sense that “red-nosed reindeer” is in there somewhere. In fact, the opening to the second verse is as follows: “Are you waiting for the family to arrive? Are you sure you’ve got the room to spare inside?”

I know the answer to the second question, because I’ve seen the evidence. Over the past six years, it’s become a Christmas Eve social media tradition for people to tweet me pictures of the cramped, shabby, gaudy, improvised and inappropriate beds they’ve been assigned to wake up in on Christmas morning. Ranging from recliners topped with threadbare blankets (and a cat) to airbeds in bitterly cold utility rooms, the pictures offer a reminder that, while we spend more per capita on Christmas gifts than any other nation, hospitality isn’t always our strong point. There’s just not enough room (or duvet covers) at the inn.

@great_defector: ‘Mum suggested brother make bed up on floor under ironing board. Brother is staying at friend’s house’

It started innocently enough. On Christmas Eve 2011, I tweeted a picture of my view from a single bed in the corner of my sister’s old room at my parents’ house. (My old room, now that it contains a wheezing Dell desktop and a malfunctioning printer-scanner, has come to be an “office”.) The floral duvet, austere decor, knackered soft toys and a sense of the room having been preserved in aspic since 1992 seemed to strike a chord; without containing anything stereotypically Christmassy, the picture managed to convey the essence of Christmas. People tweeted their own pictures in a gesture of solidarity, so I shared those, too, to a sizable audience who were probably staring at their phones to avoid talking to their families. The whole thing snowballed, and every year I get asked if I’m doing it again (last year, a quiet genius on Twitter called @crouchingbadger came up with a suitable hashtag – #duvetknowitschristmas).

@princess_knicks: ‘Thanks to my mum for the bedtime company…’

I’ve been sent thousands of photographs over the years, these mundane pictures of neglected rooms and weird domestic scenes; they’re things guests would never normally get to see – because you’d make an effort to tidy up for those guys; but for family, it’s different. You do your own thing, unique to you and your kin, and if that involves your younger brother being forced to sleep under an ironing board, well, that’s just how it is.

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We tend to have a good idea of what awaits us when we’re Driving Home For Christmas (or battling with planned engineering works on the TransPennine Express). I would always arrive at my parents’ house on the afternoon of Christmas Eve, walk in, sit down as they watched Deal Or No Deal and spend 15 minutes railing against the premise of the show while they pondered whether the contestant should have accepted the banker’s last offer. If Noel Edmonds referred to someone choosing a box as “making a manoeuvre in live play”, I’d say, “I’ve had enough of this”, and leave the room, tutting. At that point, Christmas had truly begun. Deal Or No Deal was axed last year, and we’ve not yet found another tradition to replace it.

@charliechar: ‘It’s a comfy but very literal bed at my parents’ house’

Later in the evening, before I head up to my modest yuletide bedroom, my dad goes through a detailed rundown of which electrical appliances need to be switched off, which ones need to be turned off at the wall, and which ones need to be unplugged completely. It’s unclear whether he’s trying to save a few pence on the electricity bill, or fears we’ll perish in an electrical fire, but it’s a serious business that I show respect for, despite wondering what the big deal is.

After all, spending Christmas in someone else’s house, even if it’s a house you lived in as a child, requires consideration and understanding, as you adapt to new ways of doing things. Mealtimes may be bizarrely early or distressingly late. Thermostats may be set to Greenland or Congo. Possessions may be tidied away when you’re not looking, leaving you hunting for stuff you only put down for a second. Since your last visit, furniture may have been replaced without your approval. You may be shouted at for leaving a plate on the pouffe. Children returning to the family nest may even be accused of treating the house like a hotel. If only; at least then they might get a choice of pillows and be allowed to walk around the building during the night without being confronted by an alarmed parent wielding a hammer.

@MagsTheObscure: ‘Last year I had a door under the mattress, this year I have the room where the dog sleeps’

The pictures I get sent each year tend to fall into a few regular categories: 1) the box room, jam-packed with tat, including well-thumbed crime fiction, electronic drum kits, chin-up bars and exercise equipment, Sanyo cassette players, broken remotes and upturned furniture hidden by tartan throws; 2) the two single beds provided for a couple, definitely not pushed together and very carefully separated by a bedside table; 3) blank, featureless rooms, empty except for a bed, without even a lampshade; 4) creepy things placed to watch over you and guarantee you a troubled night, including terrifying dolls, ominous busts and headless mannequins; 5) beds adorned with childhood duvet covers featuring fairies, racing cars or Superman, retrieved from the bottoms of drawers and deployed by parents in a mischievous attempt at low-level humiliation; 6) disorienting decor choices, including wall plates, curtains patterned with swirls of brown and orange, and hangings (such as one asking What If The Hokey Cokey Is What It’s All About?); and 7) claustrophobic scenes where second cousins-once-removed are placed within touching distance in a confined space and wished “sweet dreams”.

@RobboRobson21: ‘This will be the view from my bed tomorrow. I’m going to have night terrors, aren’t I?’

This social media escapade has taught me how keen we are to peek into other people’s dysfunctional situations – maybe because it reassures us that our own circumstances are as weird as everyone else’s. My own Christmas will be spent with my parents and sister, as usual; I’ll perform some wireless-router servicing and other light IT duties, hide in the other room when there are disagreements over vegetable preparation, and indulge my father’s insistence on reading out every Christmas cracker joke, regardless of its comedic quality. I’ll also receive a couple of gifts that cause no surprise whatsoever because I specifically requested them. And tomorrow night, I’ll sit at my laptop, sharing a new selection of festive JPEGs sent to me by strangers all over the UK. We’ve had a lifetime of adverts depicting the “perfect Christmas”; now it’s time to remember that our own imperfect, slightly rubbish Christmases have actually got quite a lot going for them.

• Rhodri Marsden’s book, A Very British Christmas, is published by HQ Stories at £9.99. To order a copy for £8.49, go to guardianbookshop.com or call 0330 333 6846.

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