HOW TO MAKE A WINTER WONDERLAND

I just read a BBC article about those disappointing Winter Wonderland things people go to. It seems almost every year, there's a 'magical experience' which turns out to be a muddy walk on a building site.

Professor Martyn Bennet from Nottingham Trent University suggests that we just don't have the kind of weather to make it work. Instead of the soft snowfall of central Germany, we get the drizzle and dampness of South Ruislip. Throw in a corner-cutting entrepreneur who sees pound signs in every plastic bauble, and you end up with polyvinyl sheets for an ice rink, a threadbare Santa in a grotty tent and dishevelled elves on a fag break.

The article points out that we do have a longing, sort of woven into our fabric, for a magical, white and wonderful Christmas, and we're determined to import it from snowier climes. In fact, if you think about it, that's pretty much what we've always done.

It goes on to speculate that this longing is a yearning for something much less commercial than elbowing each other in the high street; something a bit more cultured, different, communal and friendly perhaps. Something that perhaps we've lost...

"In the past, there have been traditions that brought us together," says Professor Bennet, "Things like church services, family gatherings - even the Queen's speech or television shows."

Hmmm. I wonder if Professor Bennet is aware that all four of those things still exist. Call me old-fashioned but I think if you've lost something, it's much better to start by actually looking for it rather than leaping to a replacement. Where did those traditions go, exactly?

I'm not knocking the German Christmas Markets or the winters wonderland or even Santa's (many) Grottoes! These are all ways to help children capture that magical feeling we all remember and some of them are actually really good at it.

But the truth is, if you want to make Christmas magical - for everyone, not just the kids - it's best not to rely on a construction site in a damp forest or an imported experience in a busy high street... you can do it. And the reason you know this to be true is because the things that really work, the things we all remember, are always the homemade things - tiny traditions and little family gatherings, the sofa and the tree, the sparkles, the food, the decorations and the tinsel along the picture rail.

Actually, I'm not sure people still have picture rails - we drill holes in walls nowadays for some reason. Just goes to show how old-fashioned I am (whether you say so or not). I remember standing on a stool in my Grandma's hallway, pushing a drawing pin through a piece of decorated string and right into the stiff wood that ran along the top of the wall. The house would be full of the smell of cinnamon rock cakes and the strings of the Monteverdi Orchestra playing God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen and I'd be as happy as any little boy has ever been.

See, it's the little things! They're not lost! They were in us all along. Let's get on with it and make it a wonderland.