It’s not that I don’t like Christmas. I do like it. I like lots of things about it. It’s just...

For me it’s I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day by Wizzard.

Normally I would never consider going on a rampage of any kind. But when that song comes on the supermarket PA, I have a sudden, almost overwhelming desire to find the speakers and smash them to bits. Probably using a frozen turkey as a club.

On the way I would probably steal all the elf hats off the poor supermarket staff who have been “encouraged” to wear them, take them outside, make a pile, and set them on fire. Oh how those cheap, highly flammable, Chinese-made elf hats will go up.

I’ll throw on the crackers, the plastic trees and great bushels of tinsel. Soon there would be a blazing pagan bonfire in the supermarket car park, with me dancing around it. Probably naked.

Of course I haven’t done any of this. Yet. Instead, when the song first comes on, in mid-flipping-November, I carry on shopping, my knuckles white on the shopping trolley, my skull vibrating with the grinding of my teeth.

My kids have been abit apathetic about Christmas in previous years. Something different is happening this year. At four and five, they seemed to have reached the ideal age for Christmas excitement.

They have broken out their Christmas clothes. My five-year-old son spends his time at home dressed as an elf. My four-year-old daughter has adopted a new persona. She is CHRISTMAS GIRL!

It’s an amazing, superhero twist on Santa. She’s sassy. She’s cool. She’s in charge. She is constantly riding around the house on a diddy car handing out presents to everyone.

December has only just begun. Pray for me.