So what is the actual meaning of Christmas?

WE'VE been hearing about Christmas for so long now, certainly since October-maybe earlier in some shops.

- David Taylor-Gooby

An Outreach worker in London help a homeless man

But if you tried to work out what Christmas is all about from all the decorations and TV ads, you'd get a fairly strange idea.

It'd be all about snow everywhere, in an age when that's increasingly unlikely because of climate change. And there's always happy groups of friends and family in the TV ads. You might even meet a film star in the supermarket according to one ad.

A jolly overweight man appears everywhere, of course. If you look into his origins you might find he was invented as an advertising icon for Coca Cola over 100 years ago.

Christmas trees are a German import brought here by Prince Albert, Queen Victoria's husband, 150 years ago. They were initially a fire risk because of all the candles.

I have to admit I rather like decorating the tree, because I can go mad with all sorts of decorations and bright colours. Mine looks like a Blau Reiter painting, my favourite artists. (Look up the painter Franz Marc if you want to know who the Blau Reiter painters were. Or if you're ever in Cologne, go into the art gallery and see their paintings.)

I even saw a bauble in a supermarket looking like a food mixer.

Christmas trees lend themselves to all sorts of symbolism. We even imported a song from Germany 'Oh Christmas Tree' about them, which incidentally has the same tune as the 'Red Flag'. Work that out if you can.