Gerard Howlin: The bright lights of our globalised Christmas don’t spread to all

I take a strict view on Christmas. It begins on December 24 but not before. It concludes on January 6. As the memorial it commemorates recedes in our post-Christian society, the scale of festival surrounding it engorges.

There is something repellent about Christmas in November. It is bad taste and bad manners. It’s an intrusion into a separate season which can be appreciated for itself. Leaves are meant to fall and the days get shorter uninterrupted by glaring lights or loud jingles that guzzle carbon.