Christmas: New Rules Please

Christmas instills in me a mild sense of insecurity. And by Christmas, I mean the period from 1 November until 1 January. Everything that is normally so ordinary and everyday changes. Houses and shops are adorned with gawdy decor; diabolical, minute lights dangle barely noticeably from the lamp posts; jolly music is piped from every orifice of every sound system in the land; scraps of tinsel are tossed across everything from computer terminals to pumps at bars in pubs and calorific intake trebles with only the humble, yet suddenly omnipresent satsuma to rescue us from total saturated-fat-saturation.

"Have a magical Christmas" it says in the cards I'm sending this year. What kind of a tall order is that? I can manage the odd magical moment in life, but to expect an entire season to be magical is inevitably going to lead to disappointment. People aren't allowed to die or become ill ("what a shame, at Christmas time too"); dinners must not be burnt or undercooked; winter must become a wonderland; it's all a performance, your home a stage, and the show must go on (with costume preferably red and sparkly).

Why can't Christmas be more like its sister, Easter. Easter pops its yellow, egg-shaped head up and lowers it again all within the space of a holy week. We're still allowed to adore and relish all that's spring-like - the daffs, the chicks the blossom and other yellow things, but we are not carried on some grotesque journey of jollitude and over-indulgence.

I propose that we talk less of Christmas and more of winter. Let's light our trees to bring some relief from the dark evenings; let's be merry indoors with wine, mulled or half-decent, because it's too cold to be out. None of these gestures or occasions need to be in the name of Christmas. Furthermore, why stop them with an almighty sense of anticlimax on 2 January? We could allow Christmas to embrace us for a few days, say 12, from 24 December; for the rest of the time, we could just enjoy winter until spring arrives.

Of course there are those who will not want this, and whilst I think of it could Walkers please refrain from further use of the strapline "Merry Crispmas". We do not worship you, nor do we give thanks for your incarnation.

P.S. Something else is starting to outstay its welcome - I'm getting rather scared of Hallowe'en!