A HUMBUG hotel is to offer fun-free Christmas breaks to appeal to Scrooges keen to avoid any festivities this year.

Dunsley Hall Country House Hotel, near Whitby, North Yorkshire, is known for its unusual offers, having woken guests on Yorkshire Day by singing On Ilkla Mooar baht'at, and de-stressing high-powered executives by allowing them to tend to the hotel owner's herd of Aberdeen Angus cattle.

This Christmas, it is again offering a package which has earned it the nickname Humbug Hotel.

Sandwiches will replace traditional Christmas dinner, and non-alcoholic drinks will be served instead of sherry.

Guests will listen to badly-sung Christmas carols, followed by watching videos of traffic jams and floods to make sure they have a very unhappy holiday.

They will also be given a choice of Christmas gifts to open on December 25, ranging from socks and cheap perfume to hideous ties, before all decorations and wrapping paper are burnt.

The miserable guests will not be allowed a minute's merriment, as they endure local history talks. Workaholics will be provided with laptops.

The hotel, which first offered the gloomy yule breaks last year, has been inundated with inquiries about the three-day getaway, which costs £375.

Guests wanting to celebrate Christmas in the traditional way will use a separate dining room and will have bedrooms in a different part of the hotel.

Spokesman John Gallery said: "We realised that some people want to get away from it all. They have had enough in the run-up to Christmas, and our hotel is the ideal getaway."

Bill Ward, hotel owner, said: "We guarantee that people who want to be gloomy will have plenty to be gloomy about."