Christmas Eve- it's almost time to party.

Christmas Eve- it's almost time to party.

Now let me see. Have we got everything? It's that final day before the world stops spinning, cars, buses, lorries and vans briefly disappear from our roads and all you can hear is the rustling of Christmas wrapping paper, turkeys gently simmering in ovens and Uncle Jim snoring for England. Around Uncle Jim the kids are running around your home and people are dashing in and out of their homes with an almost gleeful absent mindedness. Where are we going? Have we forgotten the keys? Oh no I forgot to get the carrots and I must get Uncle Jim a woolly hat in the sales. No time to lose. Surely it can't get any better and yet it will and probably has by now.

There is a kind of delayed ecstasy about Christmas Eve, a suspension of belief, a sense of high voltage anticipation, a harum scarum urgency, a feeling that the hours and days during the day and night are never enough to think of everything before Christmas Day. There are 365 days in the year and yet in that last week or so we begin to believe that the worst case scenario will take place if we don't do everything at once. What would happen if all the shops suddenly decided to close at lunch? Of course there wouldn't be a state of emergency and of course the world wouldn't come to an end. Still we may be panicking and fretting in case the BBC or any of the TV channels overlook James Bond in their busy schedules.

Years ago of course Christmas Day stuck rigidly to its religious and spiritual traditions. There were the stirring church services where all the parishioners sung lustily at the tops of their voices. There were the hospitals on the big day where all of the latest Christmas telly celebrities would  suddenly and happily reveal that jolly old bloke with the red coat and the white beard. The children were wide eyed and agog. This was the day they'd been waiting for since - let me see- last year.

Oooh it's Santa. complete with sack. Did he really tumble down the chimney and does he really live in Lapland? That's just silly, made up, a fallacy, a total fabrication. Where's the scientific evidence? Prove it conclusively. I bet you can't. Christmases were, and probably still are, wonderfully well intentioned and very emotional. And of course it was consistently heart- warming because that was what Christmas was all about.

Sadly those early morning visits to sick children in hospital more or less ran their course and can only be fondly remembered as something we used to watch on the box. While I was growing up the Top of the Pops review of the year was more or less compulsory and  a permanent fixture. Sadly even Top of the Pops is no longer that adornment on  top of the Christmas tree although Fern Cotton and Reggie Yates still delight us with that pop music misty eyed reminiscence show, that nostalgic journey down memory lane.

From a personal view the programme itself no longer seems relevant at all and on reflection, for me it just seems superfluous to requirements. Nothing personal you understand. I belong to the 1970s generation of Slade, Roy Wood, Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Chris Rea, Paul McCartney and Wings Mull of Kintyre, Cliff Richard's lovely Mistletoe and Wine and Noel Edmonds literally smothered in tinsel from head to toe. It was all barmy, cosy, amusing and somehow timeless. Britain was a nation at one with itself, inhibitions scattered to the wind and shamelessly happy.

And yet here we are again. One day to go before those silly paper hats are worn, dad waits to cut up the turkey, the kids giggle and giggle mischievously, cousin Harry blows his nose, Auntie Irene makes sure her hair looks immaculate, brother Ben keeps sneaking off with the sweets and neighbour Norman asks whether he can have a look at the Radio Times again. If he hasn't asked for the Radio Times once he's probably asked for it a million times.

But then mum tells the children to take off their shoes off and to stop jumping on the sofa, Meanwhile the cats and dogs are creating merry hell and havoc with bits of paper in their teeth and loads of Christmas wrapping paper around their legs. Those kids will have to take their shoes off the sofa for the last time and Auntie Irene is insistent on her eighth glass of sherry, perhaps just a brandy for cousin Harry because he needs a reviving drink. He's just travelled right across the country just to be with his united family and he didn't want to miss a couple of glasses of grog, Bucks Fizz or something suitably alcoholic.

Then the door bell rings again almost vocally and vociferously. Get the door please. That's got to be the postman and then mum becomes her mutli tasking self, full of verve and versatility. She picks up the pillows on the sofa, plumping them up very elegantly and then juggles with a bag of sprouts. Then the dog launches into another deafening and cacophonous barking that can be heard at the other end of the road.

Then the whole family just slump on their settee just exhausted and it isn't even mid-day yet. The curtains are dusted and straightened, table cloths shaking and shivering with food. The mahogany cabinet resembles the local Off Licence and the old clock chimes predictably and a little wearily, perhaps acknowledging that Christmas is all about families and the preservation of lasting goodwill.

And so it is that Christmas Eve gazes longingly at Christmas Day with a very patient and wistful air. It looks as if everything is ready and prepared. The window shelves could do with a final dusting, the pictures on the wall look prettier than ever and everything looks dandy. Maybe that painting needs to be adjusted slightly and the carpet needs a quick Hoover. Apart from that it's time to for all of that whole- hearted slap stick humour, side splitting laughter and then partying all the way until the end of the year. Have a good one folks.