I’m no Christmas Grinch. I truly do love the festive season. It’s only November and I’m already desperate to put up a tree and string fairy lights everywhere, including the dog’s basket. But there’s one tinsel-time trend that I really can’t abide. I know I’m being mean-spirited, I know the offenders are just having fun, but festive jewellery causes me to break out in hives.  You know the type – tiny dangling Christmas trees with real lights, mini Santas that bleep the tune for Jingle Bells in that horrible, tinny, battery-operated way – a grotesque display of yuletide cheer.  Why would anybody willingly do this to themselves? To be “wacky”? Why would you want to be wacky? It’s not just a bit of harmless fun – it harms me, and plenty of others like me. Festive-jewellery wearing is not a victimless crime.  But there is a happy solution to this sartorial dilemma, one that allows us to extend festive cheer to earlobes and fingers in a far more discreet, chic, and stylish way.  Take Van Cleef & Arpels' classic Perlée collection, reinvented just in time for the season in couleur, with the addition of beads of coloured stone. Team the red cornelian and green malachite versions together and you’ll feel just as Christmassy as if you were wearing a pair of felt reindeer antlers.  Hirsh London's Celestial range of rings sporting spinning gold orbs with a star motif, with or without diamonds, are the jewellery version of Christmas tree baubles, especially if you wear them stacked together. For a simpler version, look to Elena Votsi's super-sleek gold ball rings, or anything from Carolina Bucci's glowing Lei Zu collection of shimmering orbs in a variety of golds. And Noor Fares' Merkaba earrings and disco ball pendants are totally, totally festive. Just, you know, squint a little.  Green and red needs no explaining, so pile up the official festive colours with Solange Azagury-Partridge's ClusterBud earrings from the Chlorophyll collection – one in ruby and one in emerald worn in each ear would do the trick.  Greek designer Ele Karela's sharply pointed Polar Stars are an obvious choice for this time of year – there’s a fairly massive hint in the name. They may as well be called North Pole stars. And if you need things to be even more literal, just click on the Christmas section of Astley Clarke's website for tiny diamond-paved stars and snowflakes galore.  See? There’s absolutely no excuse for wearing miniature reindeer earrings or flashing rings that bleat out Jingle Bell Rock. Not unless you’re trying to hurt me. And that’s just not the festive spirit.
Festive jewellery can be discreet and even stylish, says Annabel Davidson – just step away from the novelty Christmas earrings