The spirit of Christmas Present materialized in the wake of the sensational success of  ‘A Christmas Carol’. Britain which, despite French whinging, was – in 1843 – the world’s superdooperpower, had been struggling with Christmas traditions and what-not for years. Dickens’s simple short story of a tyrannical, lonely employer mirrored against his put-upon employee (the latter having a loving, but tragic, family life) caught the nation’s mood. In a tale that, to borrow  from John Lennon, is more popular than the Nativity, the eponymous Scrooge eventually sees the light, and everyone – including the sick child that Dickens threw in for extra pathos – lives happily ever after. Amen.

For me, a non-Christian, Christmas has long been defined by an event exactly 100 years ago today. The organized football match between the Allies and the Hun is probably apocryphal (nobody can agree on the score), but what is certain is that there was an informal truce on the Western Front for a number of hours on Christmas Day 1914. The Germans seem to have started it (as every good Englishman knows, they always start everything) by singing Stille Nacht (a passable translation of Silent Night). Before long, both sides were out of the trenches exchanging gifts of tobacco, black bread and buttons – and, just maybe, starting the Hundred Years War that has seen Jerry winning four World Cups to our one. (Fortunately, the World Wars went the other way.)

The truce over, the troops climbed back into their respective trenches and spent the next four years ensuring that at least 10 million of their number would never again sit around a Christmas tree exchanging gifts in the bosom of their families. Indeed, in December 1915, the order went out that any repeat of the events of a year earlier would result in a Court Martial and the Firing Squad, not necessarily in that order.

And THAT is Christmas. Once a year, mankind is enveloped in a vague haze that colours its eyesight and addles its brain. For a few short weeks, minds turn to gift-buying and peace and goodwill to all mankind. Come January 2nd, the miserable self-seeking world is back to normal  (from what I am told by Christian friends, it can start on Christmas afternoon when out-of-town guests – like three-day-old fish – start to stink). Someone who in mid- December would volunteer to save the world would, come  New Year, not give the drippings of his nose to a person dying of thirst.

This is the reason why, perhaps ironically, I believe in Taxation. While there are countless wonderful individuals and organizations out there who help the less fortunate, only the enlightened, collective self-interest of a people delegating the responsibility for its poor to its elected representatives, has the chance of ridding a country of the scourge of poverty. However enticing the Christmas message of peace and goodwill to all men sounds today (December 25th), Scrooge was right when he called it ‘Humbug!’

In any event, a heartfelt Merry Christmas to everyone celebrating today.