It was the week before Christmas and Chanukah on Sunday.

It was the week before Christmas and Chanukah on Sunday.

It's the week before Christmas and the world is still frantically rushing around, spinning around and whirling around at the most breathtaking speed. There's no time to stop or pause. Things have to be done now rather than later because if it isn't then we may have to panic like crazy. The giant supermarkets are heaving and seething, mobbed with people, trolleys groaning with merchandise, piped festive muzak full of familiarity and tradition. It has always been this way and we wouldn't have it any other way. It's a time for over indulgence, family gatherings, aunties, uncles, cousins and nieces you haven't seen for at least a year and those cliched customs.

Every year the Christian world gathers together in anticipation of the one festival at the end of the year that never changes its narrative, always leaving you wistful and nostalgic. But then you think about all of the labour and drudgery, rummaging through attics looking for twisted, ageing tinsel, moth eaten baubles, the bent star that is supposed to perch precariously on top of your Christmas tree and the pretty decorations that you may have completely forgotten about.

You think of the endless days when mum would spend all days in the kitchen, cooking, baking, basting the turkey, worrying about the time, fretting over relations who may never turn up on the big day and then regretting her decision to devote so much more time agonising about nothing in particular. This is the one time of the year nobody, or so it seems, looks forward to as Christmas Day looms approaches yet again. Why, oh why do we have to do the same thing, same place every single year?

Briefly, you remember your own childhood memories of the festive period and sigh contentedly at those early years. You can still remember sitting around our classroom table and being told quite firmly that it was indeed Christmas, it was time to roll up our sleeves and get busy. Before we knew it, the teacher would distribute vast reams of papier mache, tons of glue and so many scissors that the temptation would have been to open up a shop. It was time to get cracking on the Christmas party.

Soon we were all under strict instructions to pick up the said papier mache, cut carefully away in symmetrical patterns and the objective was to create as many lanterns and streamers as we possibly could. What ensued was a scene of childish chaos. At various tables most of the children seemed to be caught up in the most hilarious tangle of paper, sticky glue, pins and needles and any other kind of paraphernalia we could lay our hands on.

And then there was the school Christmas party with the obligatory Nativity play in the assembly hall. Shortly before the Christmas party we were all dragooned into playing any kind of musical instrument we could find. At the time both the violin, piano and, above all the recorder, were regarded as essential accompaniments to this festive musical.

Now for whatever reason the recorder was the most fashionable statement in every school curriculum. But some of us promptly refused to play the recorder because even then it just seemed the most absurd concept. Instead, you picked up the cymbal which seemed the easiest option. Besides, what could be simpler than being required to bash an instrument and just make a noise. So it was that with cymbal attached to a loose piece of string that at the appointed time you would wait your big Hollywood moment, raise your arm and smash the cymbal with dramatic force. Sadly but gloriously the cymbal went flying off in one direction and the string, quite possibly, into another school.

But some of course are rather more concerned with Chanukah, the Jewish festival that embraces happiness, laughter, doughnuts and latkes(Jewish potato cakes). We are now absorbed in the fun and frolics of this most joyous of festivals, the lighting of the Menorah and a general commitment to having the best of all times. For as long as any of us can remember now Chanukah has either overlapped with Christmas or arrived a couple of weeks before Christmas.

To those of us who have always observed both Christmas and Chanukah with both amusement and a childish glee maybe we should recognise them for what they are.  At the end of another frenetically eventful year of triumph and disaster, indecision and uncertainty, Brexit and No Brexit, the nation will slump on their settees, tuck into a thousand mince pies, drink endless glasses of port, brandy and mulled wine, while fondly thinking back to Morecambe and Wise and the Two Ronnies on Christmas Day.

As Boris Johnson celebrates another five years in office as Prime Minister and Jeremy Corbyn, the opposition leader of the Labour party declares humbug, it is a time for sober reflection. We are now poised to enter another decade and the years are now passing far too quickly. Of course the children will be demanding another lorry load of I Phones, I- Pads, Tablets, all manner of electronic gadgets. And don't forget Alexa, that cute little speaker that does whatever you tell it to do.

In years before our generation were blissfully content with the simple things in life such as Lego, Meccano, Etch-A- Sketch, Ker Plunk, marbles, dominoes, Scrabble or Monopoly. They were games we could identify with, relate to because they were all games that the whole family could get involved in without being wholly immersed in some small piece of plastic which excluded everybody.

Then maybe we are being fuddy duddy, middle aged hippies who have no idea what we should consider as cool and acceptable. Some of us though are longing for that first bite on those exquisitely jam filled doughnuts oozing with spectacular sweetness. It has to be Chanukah for some of us closely followed by Christmas. Oooh, children there goes Santa again all the way from Lapland and yes he has brought you a present! You didn't think he'd forget or did you? It's the blond one from Uxbridge. It's Boris Johnson and he will undoubtedly get Brexit done. We can but hope.