And so it is Christmas, again. The feeling that it is only a month or so since the last one is ever present. I always believed that was a sign of the advancing years, and I still think it is.

Those of my farming friends who produce poultry for the Christmas market are wandering round, shaking their heads, and muttering 'never again'.

They will be back however, or most of them will. The feeling that it is all too much trouble will have gone when August comes and it is time to order next year's chicks.

This year it has been difficult to get into the Christmas spirit. I do not think the weather has helped.

We still have an image of Christmas being cold and snowy. The warm, wet weather we have been having does not fit the bill.

I gather that Dickens lived through a disproportionate number of very cold winters in his first twenty years.

He therefore wrote of bitterly cold Christmases in his books, such as A Christmas Carol.

This image entered the national consciousness and we still expect cold snowy Christmases.

In his time the Thames used to freeze over and bonfires were burned on the ice.

The only time I can remember a major river freezing in a serious way was in 1963 when the Ouse froze near the banks.

Some of my school friends walked on it. Not me, I hasten to add.

I was far too conscious of the consequences if the ice had broken.

I did, however, walk on Wilberfoss beck which was frozen from bank to bank.

If that ice had gone through I would have been wet up to my knees. I could have lived with that.

Now, with global warming, the children of today will not see such things. Neither will they have the fun of being able to skate on flooded ings land as happened in the past.

Despite the best efforts of the shops, well, the ones I go to, many people do not seem to have been particularly gripped by the seasonal emotions.

Businesses seem to be closing for shorter periods than they did a few years ago, which at least means the rest of us can gain access more readily to the items we need in our various businesses.

The pigs my brother and I keep still seem to want to be fed, whether it is Christmas Day, Boxing Day or New Year's Day.

We are supposed to be celebrating a major religious event. The religious content of the occasion is diminishing.

Even those who are nominally members of the Church of England seem to regard church attendance as optional. The sound of church bells across the quiet fields is getting rarer and rarer and congregations are dwindling.

If one is given to thinking of these things at all it is unusual not to have doubts.

Christmas is a time when it is difficult to avoid the great musical celebrations of the biblical stories such as Handel's Messiah or the superb Christmas hymns written down the centuries.

Our eyes are drawn to the magnificent ecclesiastical buildings that are especially prominent in York.

The people whose vision and drive were behind these architectural and artistic offerings were great in their era.

Their achievements have stood the test of time.

They were believers in God and the Christmas story and were prepared to stand up and be counted.

At least those who believe now are in good company.

A happy and peaceful Christmas to you all.

Updated: 10:43 Tuesday, December 24, 2002