You don't need me to tell you that preparations for Christmas seem more hectic, and start earlier, every year.
Far from being an opportunity to pause and reflect, Christmas has become a vast and tacky machine that gobbles people up in November, and spits them out (exhausted, irritable and fat) in January. The simple exchange of presents and letters has become a commercial guilt-trip of unimaginable proportions. Small wonder we collapse into Boxing Day as exhausted as a circus performer intent on keeping a hundred plates simultaneously spinning on sticks.
Fourteen years ago, on Christmas Eve, I sat drinking in a Yeovil pub, about to enjoy a night on the tiles. A friend challenged me to go to a midnight church service instead. I was intrigued: I had been an atheist, but was becoming less comfortable in my godless universe. It would certainly save some money, avoid the sort of hangover usually reserved for friends of Oliver Reed and George Best... And maybe, just maybe, in the midst of all the hustle and bustle, I'd discover something about real meaning of Christmas.
I went off with my friend, and my life changed utterly.
I cannot promise that, if you chose to step back from the festive trappings, the same will happen to you. But I do implore you, in the midst of the rush and busy-ness, to at least try to find a way to the heart of the Christmas story.
For all the right reasons, this could be a Christmas you never forget.