As a musician playing my piano, I am able to watch many things, like a musical socioligist. This is the strangest Christmas I can remember. It just hasn't got going. The spirit has been kept bottled up.

Half the audience will wear Christmas hats and half fail miserably.

As a former retailer I was horrified by Christmas shopping. Woolworth's deserves to be led to the slaughter. I have never seen such a mess. The St Albans shop was a disaster. Little or no stock, overpriced rubbish and staff over-run. No manager in sight. Let's be honest selling Christmas decorations in Harrods in August hardly smacks of goodwill. Parents get sucked into the new laptop, the Xbox and spending £300 they don't have.

STOP STOP STOP. Let's throw the corporate cowboys off the christmas stagecoach and get back to the old fashioned sleigh.

Hopefully the credit crunch will have some advantages.

Melt the plastic and get back to the old cardboard box. Where has the local vicar gone?

I asked Aidan my ten year old what Christmas meant to him and without prompting he startled me, 'It means presents, family and love.' Wow..there is a God.