Pay, feminism, water charges. What not to talk about over Christmas dinner

It’s that time of year again: a time when people come together in an orgy of tryptophan, bad jokes and family brawls with the ones they love, and the ones they are forced by flukes of genes or marriage to tolerate.

You’re old enough to know better, but somehow it happens every year. One casual observation over the turkey about public sector pay or entitled millennials and their silly beards, and you find yourself as welcome as Donald Trump at a breastfeeding support group.

We’re here to help you navigate the minefield with our guide to the year’s top Yuletide flashpoints, the topics you’ll need to steer clear of to ensure your Christmas dinner is a hygge feast and not a huge fiasco. Of course, if you like your festive get-togethers to be lively, then consider the following a handy prompt card.

1. Sharenting

The opener: "CHEESE! Oh wait, you're not going to put that up on Facebook, are you? Couldn't we just enjoy this one day without sharing it with your 875 friends? While we're on the subject, what's with all the photos of the kids you keep posting? You mark my words, they won't thank you for it when they're older. You never know what weirdo could be cyberstalking them – and, to be honest, it's making you look boring, needy and self-indulgent."

The comeback: "So you read one article on 'sharenting' [for the rest of you, that's parents sharing pictures of their kids online] and you're some kind of expert? Social media is part of society now, and it's a lovely way to let my friends around the world watch our kids – a better, smilier, Instagram-filtered version of them – grow up. You'd understand if you had a Facebook account/kids/friends of your own."

Fight factor: 3/10. Criticism of someone else's parenting, no matter how benign, is always a touchy subject, but – unless you're actually related to Mark Zuckerberg – this is at the lower end of the scale in terms of its ability to cause Brussels sprouts to be thrown.

2. 2016: The worst year in history?

The opener: "Let's raise a glass to the end of the worst year in history. Here's to 2016, the year that gave us an unrelenting diet of misery; the year that gave us Trump, Brexit, the rise of right-wing extremism, the Zika virus, Syria, police shootings, riots, terror attacks, earthquakes, fake news, giraffes in crisis …"

The comeback: "The worst year in history? Surely you mean 72,000 BC, when a volcanic eruption on Sumatra the size of 1.5 million Hiroshima-size bombs precipitated a nuclear winter, and decimated the global population? Or 1348, the year of the Black Death. Or 1943 …"

Fight factor: 2/10. Too academic to be truly divisive, but it could be entertaining to watch the pedants in your family come to blows over the metrics by which the worst year in history should be determined.

3. Millennials: The worst generation in history?

The opener: "I'll tell you what's wrong with young people today. They're shallow, insecure, entitled snowflakes, who demand instant gratification and have a vastly over-inflated sense of their own abilities. They got so many participation trophies growing up, they think they should be promoted just for showing up to work once in a while. They're obsessed with self-expression, yet they all have the same tattoos, the same beards and the same permanently wounded expression. Millennials are so awful, even millennials don't want to be millennials."

The comeback: "You're absolutely right. I don't want to be a millennial, left to fix the mess your generation created. Believe me, I'd love to have been able to actually afford a house and have a safe, pensionable job for life, but sadly the greed and corruption of your lot ruined all that for us. The best I can hope for is my old bedroom back and an unpaid internship. Oh, and you can keep your participation trophy, since I'm not likely to be able to afford a fireplace to put it over for at least another decade."

Fight factor: 6/10. A bit of inter-generational bashing is always fun, but if you're going to take this one on, it might be wise to keep it in context and remember whose generation was responsible for the rise of Trump and Brexit, and whose merely gave us Snapchat.

4. Fat-shaming

The opener: "Did you see the story about the horrific Santa Claus who fat-shamed that poor 9-year-old in North Carolina when he told him to lay off the burgers and fries? I don't understand why it's okay for the sanctimonious, finger-wagging skinnies in our society to shame other people based on their size – and I can tell you from personal experience that being patronised and hassled about it doesn't help. Besides, I have a hormonal condition."

The comeback: "I'm sorry, but did you see the size of that kid? Society is getting fatter and sicker, and my taxes are being used to pay for people who are too lazy or too greedy to change their habits. Fat-shaming, as you call it, is a rational response to the obesity crisis. Why is it okay to shame cigarette smokers – to corral them outside to stand in the rain – but not fat people? Or to shame alcoholics into not getting behind the wheel of the car? I'm offended that you're offended."

Fight factor: 9/10. Around 40 per cent of Irish adults are overweight, a figure that rises to 80 per cent of the over 50s, so this one could get personal. Whatever your perspective, a meal at which the average person ingests 7,000 calories may not be the best time to air it.

5. Public Sector Pay

The opener: "The Government should never have given in to the Luas drivers. Now the rest of that shower of coddled whingers think they can hold the country to ransom. We should sack half the civil service, ban unions, privatise the lot of it, and put Michael O'Leary in charge of everything."

The comeback: "Coddled? Let's talk about coddled. Three in four private sector workers got no pay cut during the recession, but public sector workers had their pay cut by between 15 and 20 per cent. Oh, and you'd put Michael O'Leary in charge so he could blast ads into intensive care units and charge kids for bringing a schoolbag? Brilliant idea."

Fight factor: 5.5/10. With 389,000 public sector workers in the country, chances are there will be at least one at your Christmas gathering. If you have a wannabe Michael O'Leary [or, God forbid, the actual Michael O'Leary] there too, this has the potential to get very heated.

6. Feminism

The opener: "Frankly, I'm tired of listening to feminists bang on about how tough they have it. Let's talk about some real issues. Let's talk about how it is actually legal to discriminate against men, if they happen to be fathers and unmarried, in the Irish courts. Let's talk about how men are more than three times as likely to take our own lives. Let's talk about how men suffer more acts of violence …"

The comeback: "Eh, did you actually read that copy of Caitlin Moran's How To Be A Woman I gave you back in 2013? Feminism is about the belief that men and women are equal. The idea that gender equality takes something away from men is nonsense. If you spent less time feeling aggrieved about women wanting the right to be paid the same as men, walk down the street unaccosted and decide what happens to their own bodies – and more time thinking of ways to help young men navigate the world safely and respectfully – then we'd all be a lot better off."

Fight factor: 7.5/10. If yours is the kind of enlightened household where discussions about gender equality don't typically involve someone invoking the term 'feminazi', then pour everyone another glass of Verdejo and pass around the organic cashews, and enjoy the show. If not, steer clear.

7. Vaccinations

The opener: "Did you see that video on Facebook featuring those poor kids whose lives were destroyed by the HPV vaccine cover-up? No way my daughter is getting that jab. There's just too much we don't yet know about it. In fact, the only thing we can say for sure is that the real beneficiaries here are the pharma companies."

The comeback: "Congratulations. You've fallen victim to the most dangerous con job in modern medicine, at least since the MMR-autism controversy. In studies of 3 to 4 million women, there is absolutely no evidence of any link between the HPV vaccine and any immune or nervous system disorder. But because of that campaign, vaccination rates have plummeted – 5,000 fewer girls got the vaccine last year, and lives are definitely going to be lost as a result. I won't just be getting it for my daughters. I'll be getting it for my sons too."

Fight factor: 8/10. It's an unwise person who underestimates the ability of parents to take umbrage at perceived criticisms of their decisions regarding their children's health.

8. The Repeal the 8th Movement

The opener: "I'm not opposed to abortion in limited circumstances, especially where rape or fatal foetal abnormalities are involved. So yes, I do think we should look at the 8th amendment. I just wish the women in the repeal movement didn't have to be so shrill about. I think they're losing a lot of support with their tone."

The comeback: "Right. And do you think it would have been better for Rosa Parks if she had been a bit more polite about taking the bus seat from the nice white people? Do you think Martin Luther King should have been less shouty? Do you think the suffragettes would have got further faster if they had been less shrill when they were chaining themselves to the railings? Do you honestly think real civil rights change ever comes about through people being mindful of their tone?"

Fight factor: 10/10. Any discussion concerning abortion gets top rating. Avoid if you plan on eating your turkey while it's still warm.

9. Water Charges

The opener: "I'm the one poor fool in the country who actually paid my water charges, and frankly I'd pay them again. Water is a scarce natural resource, and it doesn't just fall out of the sky and into our taps. There's a huge infrastructural network involved in delivering it, and that network doesn't come cheap. People only respect what they have to pay for and, if we want them to conserve water, the only way to ensure that happens is to make them pay for it."

The comeback: "Yes, you are a fool. Access to water is a basic human right – and one we already pay for, through our taxes. Are you proposing that we should pay twice? Anyway, didn't you know that you just had to tough it out, and the Government would capitulate eventually?"

Fight factor: 5/10. When even the Government hasn't managed to stand firm on this one, no-one is likely to argue for the preservation of water charges with any real conviction. Only moderately incendiary.

10. Beards

The opener: "Could you not have at least shaved? It's Christmas Day. Do you think your Auntie Mary wants to look at you sitting there with a toilet brush on your chin while she's having her turkey? I read a study that beards actually have more poo in them than a toilet brush. I don't know what statement you think you're making, but if you think you look like George Clooney, take it from me, you do not. It's Mr Twit you look like."

The comeback: "So fat-shaming it out, but you're okay with beard-shaming? I'll have you know that a study in the Journal of Hospital Infection actually found that beards are more hygienic than bare faces, and that abundant facial hair reduces the likelihood of antibiotic-resistant bacteria being present on the skin. Besides, I'm not making any statement, I just like it. It's warm and comfortable, but if you want to interpret it as making me a modern, masculine, manly kind of man, who is unafraid of the commitment of maintaining either facial hair or a relationship – and able to do things like wield and axe and turn an old Christmas tree into firewood – I'm fine with that impression."

Fight factor: 2/10. Mammy may abhor the beard, but she loves her boy. And Daddy is secretly proud of his hyper-hirsute offspring. No real potential for conflict here.