Like an elusive destination on a long-distance journey, Christmas is always coming. From a child’s perspective, it takes an eternity to arrive and then is gone in little more time than it takes to remove a present’s wrapping. In high street shops, Christmas has been coming since October, the month in which it becomes officially acceptable, since Fairytale of New York was lyrically cancelled, to begin playing Paul McCartney’s torturous Wonderful Christmastime.
But now that, according to the latest census, the UK is a minority Christian country, might Christmas stop coming and start going from our lives? In many respects, the religious aspects of Christmas have long been subsumed by, or at least dressed up with, its consumerist trimmings. As the Rev Richard Coles, broadcaster and former vicar of Finedon, Northamptonshire, puts it: “For most people, Santa and the Virgin Mary are equal members of the cast of Christmas.”
