THIS is my favourite favourite time of year. I love it. Not even the weather, a particularly nasty dollop of flu, and news bulletins about a catalogue of man's inhumanity to man, can spoil it.

I guess it's one period during 12 months of insanity when I allow myself the luxury of joining the rest of the ostriches, sticking my head in the sand and pretending all is well with the world.

It isn't, of course, but optimism runs high at Christmas, with the New Year looming large and most people displaying the general air of bonhomie which marks the festive season.

I was born into and reared in a a very close family environment. We were a modest, Lancashire working class unit where mum and dad happily made the same sacrifices each year to make sure their four sons had pillow cases full of goodies each Christmas morning.

In that respect, my folks, my wife and I are no different than millions of mums and dads.

But in recent years mushrooming commercialism and the power of TV advertising, accompanied by tighter domestic budgets or, worse, unemployment, have placed intolerable burdens on parents at Christmastime.

Instead of being the joyous, carefree time it's supposed to be, Christmas is now viewed with dread by countless families, struggling to stay afloat 51 weeks a year, never mind providing Christmas goodies for the kiddies.

This is when the gulf between the 'haves' and the 'have nots' becomes more cruelly marked. When simmering resentment at the rotten deal life has dealt can swamp the very meaning of Christmas.

Just in case anyone has forgotten, it's meant to celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ.

I wonder what the saviour of mankind would think of us if he suddenly decided to take a walk round Blackburn on the eve of his birthday.

He's probably be somewhat miffed that his anniversary is seen as an excuse for rampant commercialism for one. And the number of people forced to sleep on the streets would no doubt convince him that even after 1995 years, there' still no room at the inn!

But the lesson he would want us all to recall is that Christmas is a time when tolerance, forgiveness, generosity, thoughtfulness, all the positive sides of the human psyche, are supposed to emerge.

Would it be asking to much for these qualities to be more in evidence in the run-up to December 25?

Would it be possible for some of you out there to lend a helping hand to someone less fortunate than yourself, a family struggling to make ends meet, a single parent anxiously trying to give her child, or children, as happy a Christmas as a restricted income will allow?

If Jesus taught us anything, it was that it is better to give than receive.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.