What do we want? Christmas! When do we want it? Earlier!

For something that has been happening with pretty dependable regularity every year since at least 1988 (and for a fair while before that, I’ve heard), Christmas doesn’t half sneak up on you.

I’m two days late getting my advent calendar, have only bought three presents so far and I don’t know where my novelty antlers are. I feel like Prime Minister Hugh Grant in Love Actually when he has to fight off America and go to every house in Wandsworth trying to win back Martine McCutcheon.

The mistake we make every year, of course, is to start doing Christmas too late. Whingers the world over will tell you it’s the opposite, that everything comes too early and costs too much and smells too good and oh isn’t it awful, but they are wrong.

If anything, we don’t let it come early enough. They have conditioned us to ignore Christmas until it lands square in our laps like a needy cat, mewing and shedding and demanding attention*.

Then we don’t have time and space to savour the season as it deserves. We just take a deep breath and launch ourselves through each festive hoorah, gathering pace, being loaded up with items like a pack mule, gift receipts and Lindor wrappers crunching underfoot, until we eventually fling them all off in a frantic Buckaroo manoeuvre and land on the sofa, December 27th, face-down in a trifle.

Wouldn’t it be better if instead, we revved up Christmas on about November 6th, free from judgement or mutterings? As the last firework fades in the sky, we could give Noddy Holder a megaphone to kick off proceedings and take it gently from there.

Then there would be plenty of time for lots of nice sitting around, in between all the ice skating and queuing and singing and travelling and wrapping and cooking and high-kicking with Weird Brian from HR. I honestly believe it would be more sensible, like warming up our festive muscles with some light stretching before the marathon.

For example, I found out today that the average person in the UK eats 27 mince pies every Christmas. TWENTY SEVEN. Stuffed with a clammy fist into the space of three short weeks, that’s probably enough greasy pastry to make your insides go see-though like a paper bakery bag. But distributed across a much longer period – six weeks, let’s say – it becomes just another healthy way to achieve your recommended butter and sugar intake!

As I’ve already missed this year’s early deadline, it’ll have to wait till Christmas 2014 - or extend the whole thing to the third week of January. Either way I’ll be dealing with the needy cat of Christmas the way that works best with all cats: putting a silly hat on it.

*I don’t have a cat, can you tell?