I campaigned to ban Christmas songs outside of December. I'll never forget what happened next - Stephen Pound

I was invited on to the “Today” programme to debate the issue with the marketing manager of a major high street series of shops and I made what I thought was a powerful case for holding back on Frosty the Snowman until late November.

My opponent presented the startling fact that the three months leading up to Christmas were responsible for most of their profit margins and that Rocking Around the Christmas Tree stimulated the purchase of stocking fillers and more.

I then played my trump card. I said that if I heard that flippin’ Mistletoe and Wine one more time, I’d run out of the shop without buying a single useless Christmas present.

We left the BBC in an amicable mood and I strolled back to Westminster with confidence of a job well done.

I had not counted on the fact that throughout the land there are vast battalions of people who will not hear a word against Cliff Richard and who took severe umbrage at my disrespecting their Cliff.

They even turned up at my weekly advice surgery and I’ll never forget the clatter of Zimmer frames as a group of furious fans monstered my staff and I with demands for an instant retraction.

The fact that I may have lost this particular battle did not diminish my determination to keep Christ in Christmas and stand against the commercial tide.

Other countries may celebrate the French Revolution in July or the anniversary of victory over the Third Reich in Russia but I have more time for those High Days and Holy Days which mark out the Christian calendar.

I have no objection at all to Ramadan, Diwali, Vaisakhi or Hanukkah being celebrated as appropriate but just as we mark the global calendar in terms of Before Christ or Anno Domine we should respect and indeed revere the holiest days of them all between Good Friday and Easter Sunday as well as at Christmas.

So, does the celebration of the birth of Christ still resonate or even feature in the minds of the modern resident of these islands?

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I am genuinely delighted to see the range of nations represented at Midnight Mass or on Christmas Day and I happen to believe the through the blizzard of television adverts and the rather phony Christmas “specials” – usually recorded in the height of summer – there is something still, silent, and rather wonderful about this time of year.

We blithely speak of the “magic of Christmas” but that is not to diminish the miracle that we celebrate nor the miracle arising from a few days of looking back at the past year, forward to the next and asking ourselves how we can be better in the New Year.

There are some who would mock those of us who hold Christmas in our hearts and there may well be people who cannot see beyond their greedy dreams and desires.

But as long as a carol can be heard in a snowy street and children with freezing breath crowd into our churches and chapels and as long as families and friends gather in joyful company then the true spirit of this magical time is there for all to see and for all to celebrate.