If you get a bit of delight in the winter gloom from those wacky, over-the-top Christmas light displays on the outsides of some houses, as I do, you can kind of understand why they put them up a bit early. It would hardly be worth going to all that bother just for twelve days. There's a village near us called Pipers Pool, and every year a bloke put up a spectacular show in his front garden. It was so good that a lot of people around here made a special detour once a year to see it (us included). Then one year it wasn't there - the chap had died (it took us a year or two to find out). We still raise a glass to this unknown hero once every Christmas!

I'm not that bothered about clots who put trees up in their windows before November is out. I get a lot more irritated when I'm seeing Christmas stuff in the shops in early September and hearing carols over the tannoy in October...