In 1946, buoyed by post-War optimism, the World Health Organisation adopted a famous definition. Health, it declared, was more than the mere absence of disease or infirmity, it was ‘a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being’. A beautiful and tyrannical idea, sentimentally idealistic and setting an impossible standard for human lives. In these qualities of cheerful and unreasonable despotism, it resembles Christmas.

Our wish to make kids happy at Christmas turns us into untiring fifth columnists of festive tyranny

On the first of November, collecting my cardboard cup of coffee in Costa, I noticed it was decorated with a festive scene. I scowled, which comes naturally, but felt a small and undignified flutter of pleasure. Nothing natural about that, only the insidious victory of years of Christmas tyranny over my cold dark heart, like mistletoe overwhelming an oak. In mid-November, in the pub with friends, we bitched to each other about the tinsel and baubles. By the end of the month, surrounded by an even gaudier display of the same, this time with tree, we admitted we were pleased by the festive decorations. Perhaps it helped that we were in the Hind’s Head in Bray, and due at the Waterside Inn the next night.........

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