THE man who can fix these things considers ordering matters differently this year. Man isn't really the word for him, because being a deity - the ultimate deity, so long as you ignore all the others - lifts him a few thousand feet above the mortal. And perhaps that 'him' should be a 'Him', but we'll let that rest.

So it comes to pass that God decides to let everyone have what they want this Christmas. Being God, he can arrange to have a trial run before the real thing, because that's the way ultimate beings carry on in their spare time.

And so it is that God looks down from his skylight beyond reach to see what would happen if he allowed all seasonal desires to be fulfilled.

In the busy street many thousands of feet below, something odd has started happening to the climate.

With all Christmas wishes granted, the weather has to be tailored to suit individual needs.

One woman walks along the street accompanied above by her personal cloud, which is pregnant with snow. As her desire for a White Christmas grows, the shavings of snow form into larger flakes that settle on her coat, making her cold but cheerful.

Next to this snow-covered woman, who is rushing home to a roaring log fire where normally only a gas fire sputters, a man in a bright summery shirt stops to mop his brow. His personal sun shines so hard and strong it brings him out in a sweat. Still, it beats being cold.

A little further along the street, a cross-looking woman has chosen thunder and lightning, the better to accommodate her dark pre-Christmas mood.

As news spreads of God's special offer, all sorts of wishes are fulfilled. Some of these are romantic, with lost lovers meeting again. The nearly loved are properly cherished this time round; hopeless passion now burns for a reason.

Some desires are fantasies of the baser sort and while God doesn't approve, he lets matters run, as this is only an experiment.

Many of these fancies demand that the famous dead live again in the full flesh.

"Looks like Marilyn is going to be busy," says God to himself, as Monroe is resurrected in numerous heated imaginings.

God considers Marilyn Monroe to have been one of his better creations and he indulges in a fond smile, forgetting the nastiness of her going. He prefers to remember her through the films, which are often slotted into his Divine Video Disc player.

As happy families gather together at Christmas, sharing the loving embracing of each other's company, hearing each other out, never drinking too much, and never letting old hurts draw blood again, God pats himself on the back. Yes, this experiment is working well.

Then he looks down and sees that some families are beginning to squabble. Perhaps they know no other way; maybe they actually like an argument, or at least can't get by without a row.

God sighs and lets out a long, low rumble of displeasure.

He is then struck by a gloomy inevitable thought. However much he might wish to arrange matters differently, there are limitations. He cannot bring back all the dead people just for Christmas; he cannot return the towers to their dizzying glory; he cannot place fallen planes back into the sky; he cannot cure all the sick children.

"Oh, I don't know why I bother," God says to himself. He looks down from his celestial window and decides to abandon his experiment. He shakes the world below, as if it were one of those Christmas decorations containing flurries of pretend snow in water.

As everything settles back to normal, the woman in a winter wonderland is sharing the same patchy December sky as the man who is no longer wearing a Hawaiian shirt.

Still, she is cheerful because she heard on the radio that it might snow on Christmas Day. The would-be sunny man, dreaming of summer in distant lands (or Cornwall at the very least), bumps into the woman.

They apologise, smile and look at each other inquisitively. It appears that they might have met before, or at least they think so. Maybe it was another Christmas.

They chat, a little tentatively. Then, on a whim, they decide to go for a drink, where the talk grows warmer; and because it's Christmas, who knows what will happen next.

The other woman, the one with her own thunder cloud, notices little difference now that God's fantasy has been dispatched.

Never mind, some people are just like that, as God knows all too well. As for those people who had been entertaining surprisingly vivid fantasies about Marilyn Monroe, or assorted other luminaries, they carry on their way, warmed by a vague sense of possibility.

And so it came to pass as usual. Some people had a happy Christmas, some didn't; some were warmed by company, others were happy by themselves; some drank far too much and some drank nothing at all; some did good and some got up to no good; in other words, Christmas happened, like it always does.

As for God, he settles his head back into a nice cumulus cloud and lights the cigar Noah gave him.

As he sends smoke into the upper air, he puts up his feet on another cloud, without removing his glittery Doc Marten shoes. Shoes, not sandals. He gave up the footwear unfairly named after his son long ago.

It was too chilly up in the clouds for sandals.