Oh chanukah, Christmas, it's happening all over again.

Oh Chanukah, Christmas, it's happening all over again.

So here we are again on the last line, the last sentence, the final paragraph of the year and it only seems like the beginning of the year or perhaps the middle of it. Somehow the seasons move with such lightning fast rapidity that it's hard to keep up with those sweetly flowing calendar months. Most of us are just longing for the end of those Brexit hostilities when it may be safe once again to put our heads over the parapet again without any feelings of remorse and guilt. Let's face it April 1st next year, although considered as a joke, may be the day we're all genuinely looking forward to.

Meanwhile it's still very early December and that could only mean one thing. It's time to brace ourselves for the yearly festivities yet again just when you thought they'd never come around again. I know what you're thinking. Here we go again on that perennial stampede on the shops and supermarkets desperately searching for the things we save up all year for armed with the kind of things we would never think of buying in bulk at any other time of the year.

Soon the cash registers or self help tills will be ringing mellifluously for those determined to empty the shelves of every conceivable type of food, clothing or electrical merchandise they can possibly cram into a giant trolley. Soon thousands and millions of people across the country will be descending on every Sainsbury's, Tesco, Morrison or Asda balancing huge boxes of chocolates, mince pies and turkeys on top of each other, trying hard not to look self conscious at the same time.

The cynics may call it ghastly greed or just unashamed consumerism on a genuinely different level. The fact is Christmas is knocking on our laurel wreathed front door and the goose is piling on the pounds. Dear old Santa is digging out that famous red coat yet again, the children can barely control their excitement and parents across the land may be wishing why we have to do the same thing every year. It's pointless, expensive, perhaps totally unnecessary and surely the kids have got enough toys.

But as a Jew the whole concept of Christmas fails to capture the imagination in the way it does with Christianity. Who are we to care about the necessity for trees, presents and mistletoe? Why do we need glitter, tinsel and mulled wine when the truth is that all you really need is a good, old fashioned menorah, a couple of flickering candles and a plate of mouth wateringly enticing doughnuts?

Tonight is the second night of Chanukah and across the globe Jews of the world will be singing, dancing, celebrating and stocking up on blissful cholesterol. Once again we'll gleefully wolf down  exquisitely prodigious quantities of latkes(potato cakes) and indulge in sugar frenzies that none of us should ever be ashamed of because it is Chanukah and it only happens once a year so it's time to tuck in again. Hooray!

Personally, my memory takes me back to our kids when they were young. Primary school chanukah parties were wildly joyous and hugely enjoyable events. One entire afternoon just before the kids broke up for the Christmas holidays, parents from all over Stamford Hill and Stoke Newington would let loose their offspring on a delicious day of story telling, dancing, joking, singing and unbridled hedonism.

In a way Chanukah was rather like a dress rehearsal for Christmas, a precursor to all of those famous songs around the piano on Christmas, the snapping of crackers, the consumption of several breweries of beer and lager and that mass slump onto a thousand sofas before the TV fest. But for Chanukah there are no mammoth presents, no gigantic trees, no guzzling of alcohol and no running down to the living room in the hope that Santa has brought you a couple of islands in the Caribbean or a million Apps on your latest Tablet.

For Jews it is all rather more restrained, less rushed, not nearly as urgent and a fun festival for both children and adults alike. Chanukah does have symbolically similar parallels in as much that it is light, cheerful and positive. But apart from the chanukah gelt( chocolate money) the resemblance doesn't really bear any real comparison as such. Of course Jews know how to enjoy themselves and Jewish weddings or bar and bat mitzvahs are maybe the perfect example. But you'd be hard pressed to find any Jew heading towards Mass on Christmas Eve nor in attendance at the local church service on Christmas Day.

But that much documented story about Mary and Joseph at the birth of their child doesn't really hold quite the same magnetic appeal as a knees up around a plate of doughnuts and latkes. Still 'tis the season to be jolly, to imbibe the amber nectar and then maintain diplomatic relations with uncles, aunties and cousins you haven't seen for at least a week or two.

Still here we are again at the same time and the same place. The TV advertising supermarket wars are well and truly underway, that brazier selling roast chestnuts outside the British Museum in London's West End is once again simmering away and those street decorations are just making everything look heartwarmingly pretty. You can feel it in the air, you can scent the festive fragrance, the department stores in the West End glistening and sparkling and Oxford Street is simply drunk with happiness.

Thousands of tourists and window shoppers will pound the pavements, striding firmly albeit pragmatically towards bargains and cheap deals, marching forwards and backwards day after day and then finally deciding that the legs are tired, the spirit isn't quite as willing as it should be but perhaps we might have tea and cake at Harrods because you might as well. It is indeed Christmas after all.

Still here in North London it is Chanukah and who needs all that excess and extravagance when you can just watch that wonderful blob of jam oozing out of your doughnut. Still who cares, this is the season to just celebrate the good things in life rather than dwelling on what might have been had we remembered to buy Uncle Pete that Christmas jumper he's always longed for. Not for us, men or women in red coats tumbling down chimneys or huge turkey leftovers reserved for Boxing Day. Oh Chanukah and Christmas. What a season of joy. We should do Decembers every day of the year. Seasons greetings everybody. 22 days and counting.