I AM, by my own admission, a grumpy person. I am a grumpy old man in the rotund body of a young man. There are few things I enjoy more than wallowing in my own curmudgeonly grumblings.

It follows logically, therefore, that with the onset of Christmas I’m preparing perversely for my favourite moaning time of the year. It is, after all, oh-so-fashionable to cock a snook at Christmas.

However, I’m not fashionable, not even in the slightest. So I’m as excited as a giddy schoolgirl about already being immersed in the season of goodwill. Because it’s just that, a season. It’s not one day, it is a whole season.

Why should we squeeze the message of Christmas into the smallest possible period of time we can? Sure, there are elements of Christmas that are frustrating, even annoying; I could dedicate a whole article to travails of Christmas shopping, but I like to embrace the concept of Christmas.

Life is, after all, really quite hard, much tougher than I ever really thought it would be. People are so busy, and with time constraints often comes a lack of patience, empathy or even basic manners.

This is the world we live in and I’m as guilty as anyone for perpetuating it. So what better thing to do as the afternoons draw in and the nights become cold than to pull out all the stops and offer goodwill to all men?

It sounds sentimental. It is, but what’s so bad about a little bit of sentimentality? I understand that for some, Christmas can be a very lonely and depressing time of year.

It’s therefore incumbent on those of us who are not blighted by the kind of problems that are so commonplace to embrace the festivity and spread the cheer.

This is not a call for religious observance. Far from it. I’ve never been to church.

Why would I? I’m Jewish, but the principles of spending time with the family, slowing down and taking a break, of giving and receiving are universally good.

Being Jewish does put me at something of a disadvantage when it comes to fully understanding some of the more unusual traditions of the season. For example, what’s with the tree inside the house?

Plus, the last thing I’d have wanted to have heard on Christmas Eve was that at any moment during the night, while I was asleep and at my most vulnerable a large man would break into the house and creep into my bedroom.

And what did the turkey do to deserve being the bird de jour?

My family will be partaking in a little turkey on Christmas Day too, alongside all the other food-related Hanukkah treats. But that’s a whole new article...