On the first day of Christmas my true love gave to me… When, exactly is the first day of Christmas?

When I was a child it was definitely sometime in December, around the second week, I would say, when decorations started appearing in streets and in people’s homes, and when shops began filling up with Festive products.

The real Christmas run-down didn’t start to kick in until we broke up from school.

Nowadays tinsel starts appearing as early as August. By October, supermarkets have aisles dedicated to Christmas and by November any visitor to the UK could easily be led to believe that Santa was about to land.

From early December, people can’t wait to deck out their homes with lighting displays to rival Blackpool illuminations – bizarre behaviour when we’re all fretting about fuel bills.

Christmas TV adverts start about two months beforehand, giving ample time to brainwash children into thinking a heap of mass-produced cheap plastic tat that costs a fortune is a fantastic, must-have toy.

When children are choosing a product – be it a computer game or mobile phone – whatever appears in the glossiest, shiniest, most glam TV advert gets the thumbs-up. And when the ad is beamed into homes day and night for two months, no wonder the item appears at the top of Christmas lists.

As we hit December images of perfect homes, with perfect families opening perfectly-wrapped gifts around a perfectly decorated tree hit our screens. They’ve supposedly just got up, yet the fire is blazing. There’s no sign of careworn adults slopping downstairs in their dressing gowns at 5am in the freezing cold, yelling at the kids to be quiet, before quickly knocking back Santa’s sherry, eating his cake, and nibbling Rudolph’s carrot before the invasion.

And in case we forget to watch the TV Christmas specials, previews are aired every three seconds. It starts to feel like propaganda when every time you turn on the TV you see Robson Green and that big bloke from the Nationwide adverts chortling as they try to outdo each other in yet another dose of Northern Lights.

For at least six weeks before Christmas, shopping centres are a no-go area unless you don’t mind a 10-hour drive to find a parking space, and enjoy elbowing your way through a sea of people.

By the time Christmas arrives, it is a wonder we are not sick to the back teeth of it. But we soldier on, pull our crackers, put on our paper hats and watch the Queen’s speech.

Then we start preparing for next year. Come to think of it, Christmas starts in January, when we all buy gift wrap and cards in the sales.