FIRST it was Whitsun, soon it will be Easter. And Christmas won't be far behind.

They will be the three forgotten festivals of the Christian church. If, of course, anyone remembers what the Christian church was.

Whitsun - once that proud celebration of walks, witness, weddings and new clothes - transmogrified into Late Spring Bank Holiday that has no religious significance at all.

When the school year, finally and inevitably, gets changed into a fixed pattern, we shall have Spring Break, and Easter will probably come in term time and be merely a bonus bank holiday when we will eat a lot of chocolate and not have a clue why.

And Christmas? Well, Christmas used to start on December 25 and last until January 6. Now it starts in August and ends on about December 20, when the sale signs go up. It has also become the festival that dares not speak its name.

We can joke about the cards saying "Season's Greetings" and shake our heads over schools that dare not do a nativity play for risk of causing offence - even though most adherents of other religions think we're crackers to do so.

But it is the beginning of the end. Christmas is slipping away from its moorings. No longer even loosely anchored to the birth of Christ, it will soon be a vast spree of getting and spending, in which we'll spend more money, get deeper in debt, buy more lights, tinsel and flashing decorations and eat and drink more and more, all in a desperate effort to discover what we are celebrating.

It's getting ever earlier and in 100 years or so, will have probably collided with Thanksgiving Day, brought over, like so much else, from America, with Halloween and Bonfire Night thrown in for good measure. We won't know what we're celebrating or why we're doing it, but we'll go out and have a jolly good time all the same and worry about the hangover later.

Footnotes in old books will explain what Christmas once was.

In the meantime, tittle to politically correct and anodyne Season's Greetings. Be proud and traditional and don't be afraid to say HAPPY CHRISTMAS! - while we can still remember what it is.

YOU can now buy costumes for nativity plays anywhere in the high street. Proper jobs - genuine-looking robes like something off the news or, at the very least, from a West End production of Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat.

Whatever happened to dressing gowns and tea towels? I have fond memories of an innkeeper in a blue robe with a fluffy white duck on the pocket. Another trick was to put the shepherds in their father's extra-size white T-shirts, inside out if they had slogans on. Which is why a friend of mine spent an entire nativity play working out that one small shepherd was a secret supporter of Somerset County Cricket Club.

There was also the time I'd had a batch of tea towels sent to the office and donated them to the playgroup - which meant that was the year that all the shepherds wore head-dresses sponsored by Yeoman Mashed Potato.

Proper shop-bought costumes might look more authentic but somehow, I don't think they'll be as much fun.

SO there I was on Saturday afternoon in an Italian cafe enjoying a proper bitter sweet stripey mocha, when I couldn't help overhearing the conversation on the next table.

Mother, stepfather and little girl aged about six or seven were having a row. Clearly, the little girl had got fed up with trudging round the shops and stepfather was hacked off because, as he told her in no uncertain terms, he hadn't wanted her there in the first place.

Shocked, I waited for the mother to leap to the child's defence. But no, she too started going on at the poor kid, telling her how hopeless she was and how much nicer the afternoon would have been if she hadn't been there. The little girl gave up on her orange juice and seemed to shrink in on herself, her head sinking bleakly towards the table.

Then her mother moved in with the killer blow.

"And don't think it will be any easier next weekend when you're with your dad," she said triumphantly, "because I can tell you now, he doesn't want you there either".

Much fuss is made about smacking children, but there are far worse ways to be cruel to a child. And what could I have done about it?

Ah, those Christmas stamps. I had wondered why they were so odd and gloomy, especially the second class one. Ivor Wade e-mailed to say that in fact they were "beautiful and slightly haunting" creations of British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy, who uses natural landscape materials to create sculptures and "assemblages that are best appreciated in an outdoor setting".

Well, yes. Maybe. Quite likely in fact. But an impressive outdoor sculpture doesn't translate very well to a titchy little postage stamp.

Eleanor Atkinson of Durham shares these sentiments. "Unable to work out what they were, I looked at them through a magnifying glass and you can see beautiful winter landscapes in the background. However, I had already stuck about 50 stamps onto envelopes without noticing this at all, so it all seems a bit pointless."

And Stuart Scott wrote: "We seem to have had boring and dismal stamps for years while many European countries manage something cheerful, colourful and seasonal. Maybe the Christmas Stamp Selection committee doubles up as the Turner Prize committee and are determined to educate the peasants in cultural values rather than pleasure and fun."

SENIOR Son has always lived in a different time zone from the rest of the family, but now it's official. He's doing a week of 12-hour night shifts at the pork pie factory and comes staggering home to bed just as the rest of us are getting up and about. I know he's done a long shift and that six in the morning is his equivalent of tea time - especially after shifting 30,000 pork pies. It's just a bit disconcerting as I'm struggling to open the orange juice to see an early morning bacon sandwich washed down with a pint of lager.

CAISTER Lifeboat has been refused a Lotto grant because it does not serve disadvantaged people. How much more disadvantaged can you be than to be shipwrecked or drowning?

Published: 17/12/2003