It's early for the baubles, but not for the baking

Christmas in October? Of course not. But October is the month when Christmas cakes are traditionally made, so recently my daughter and I did exactly that

- Tony Jackman

I often think about Christmas. Not what it means traditionally and spiritually, but its place in the world and its Pagan origins. The bawdy, gaudy artifice of it. And how, in the weeks leading up to the day, it is just everywhere and cannot be escaped.

This is good or bad depending on your point of view. I'm not really one for Boney M myself, but the Foodie's Wife, she just loves it. But the food - the rich fruit cake, the mince pies, the turkey and gammon and the potatoes roasted in goose or duck fat - all of that ropes me in every time.

And talking of time, one of those delicious things needs two months of its existence before we even get to Christmas. Which is why there is a recipe for Christmas cake accompanying this piece.

I know some people hate the very thought of Christmas, but I'm one of those who loves everything from the gaudy baubles and garish tinsel to the tree groaning with decorations, fairy lights and a bemused fairy stuck on top. I feel sorry for that benighted fairy, stuffed in a dark box for a year and then having the ignominy of 12 days with a branch up her dress.

This is all in mind because my daughter Rebecca and I made a big Christmas cake recently, and now it will be fed once a week, every Sunday morning, until Christmas Day. What's more, we made it according to our own recipe, which we made up along the way, based on ratios of this to that, and that to the other, which I googled and AI-ed, also along the way.

You may think this sounds like a recipe for disaster, but it turned out perfectly.

By the time it was ready to come out of the oven, four hours had passed since it had gone in, and some wine, and later whisky, with it.