A staggering 75% of respondents to a new survey by Kayak.co.uk are considering taking a foreign holiday over Christmas this year. The leading travel search engine conducted a poll of its UK users and found the majority wanting to swap stockings for sandals and turkey for a tan.

It’s been the wettest British summer on record, so it’s perhaps not surprising that 43% of respondents cited the weather as the main reason for wanting to get away this Christmas. As climate change transforms our four seasons into one damp and dreary dirge, it looks like Brits won’t let even a traditional festive family Christmas keep them from a much needed holiday.

A sunny beach holiday was by far the most popular option, with 65% choosing that as their ideal type of getaway and 46% picking the Caribbean as their destination of choice.

Annie Wilson, Business Development Director of Kayak.co.uk said:

“The great British summer has been a wash out this year, so who can blame us sun-starved Brits for wanting to escape to sunnier shores? Christmas is traditionally a time for staying at home, but sometimes you just need to break with tradition and let someone else cook and clean while you catch some much needed rays. It looks like it will be a sandy Santa that visits many of us this year, and he might want to swap his sleigh for a surfboard.”

Not all traditions were so readily dispensed with however. When asked what was the one thing respondents could not do without at Christmas, 41% said family, 17% said alcohol and 16% said presents.

Here are a few Christmas disasters sent in from Kayak users, to remind us why it might be a good idea to get away this year!

“I accidentally set my head on fire via a table candle and Christmas cracker paper hat.”
“I got locked out of the house with the turkey in the oven. It had burnt to a crisp by the time I got back in and therefore we just had potato and stuffing for Christmas dinner.”
“I left the oven gloves near the electric hob which caught fire and everyone had to evacuate the house! It was more of a black Christmas than a white Christmas!”
“One year in Scotland the weather was so cold the turkey didn’t defrost”
“One year my children woke up in the middle of the night, unwrapped all the presents, muddled them up, and fell asleep amongst the paper.”
“My grandma found jelly in her shoe under the dinner table one Christmas, no one knew how it go there.”
“Our dog knocked down the tree breaking all our presents and starting a fire!”
“While carving the meat my mother sliced through her finger with the electric knife.  She still insisted on eating her dinner before going to the hospital though.”

And here are Kayak’s recommendations for a cracking Christmas beach holiday:

The Caribbean- it was our respondents top choice- so who are we to argue! The Bahamas, Barbados and Antigua are just some of the destinations that can be flown to direct from London.
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