Jonny McCambridge: The tree, the naughty elves and the foot-long hot-dog…searching for that elusive Christmas feeling

Granted, this was a full month after the local shop had started playing Jingle Bell Rock and put dozens of bottles of Shloer out on display, but it still felt early.

However, doing festive things and feeling festive are not necessarily the same thing. I know that Christmas can mean different things to different people, both spiritual and temporal. I have friends for whom it is the most beloved time of the year, and others who abhor its commercial excess.

I have always primarily viewed it as an emotion, an idea or a feeling that there is some hope and comfort in shared experience which allows in a sliver of light at a time when the darkness might otherwise seem overwhelming.

I’ve been doing the normal Christmas things in the past week. I’ve been up in the attic hauling out the decorations and gamely trying not to put my foot through the ceiling.

I’ve bought the tree. In previous years I’ve visited a specialist farm. This time, in an effort to save cash, I purchased it from a discount supermarket. To the untrained eye it looked much the same and it was only when I got home that I discovered the full messy horror of a tree which seems determined to shed every one of its needles long before the calendar reaches December 25. It has also upset my nose with its pungent, earthy smell.

My son has been enjoying his daily adventures with the Christmas elves. This is a US tradition which has made it across the Atlantic to torture parents. The toy elves have to be positioned in a different scenario every evening so that the child can discover their naughty antics the following morning.

I have been doing this for years and creativity has been stretched thin trying to come up with ever more daring japes. Last year I drove my car a mile up the road and left it there with elves attached to the steering wheel and gearstick on the premise that they had taken it for a joyride.

I have been to the carol service in the village. Usually, this enables me to bellow out the traditional hymns safely ensconced in the middle of a crowd so nobody can identify the terribly out-of-tune voice. But it is a more subdued event this year and nobody around me seems to be singing.

I start off boldy ‘Joy To The World’ but quickly regress to a whisper as it becomes apparent there are few other more tuneful efforts to drown out my dirge.

There has been the annual visit to the Christmas market. Fighting through the crowds, looking at the array of exotic cheeses and confectionary which I admire every year but never buy. Then, as I always do, scoffing an oversized and overpriced sausage complete with a stale roll and onions which I find difficult to believe ever existed as a growing vegetable.

My family has been to a Christmas light show where my son embraced the festive spirit by going to the toy stall and pleading for me to buy him a light sabre priced at £20.

So, as you can see, I’ve been doing lots of festive stuff. But, as I said earlier, doing it and feeling it are not quite the same thing. Another seasonal cliché is when people say it doesn’t feel like Christmas. The saying refers to an undefinable feeling but one that is instantly recognisable when it does arrive.

Perhaps it’s been because I’ve been so busy with work or maybe just because I’ve got other things on my mind, but I haven’t quite got there yet.

I am at my desk when news emerges of the death of Pogues singer Shane MacGowan. As often with a breaking story, any sense of emotional connection with it has to be set aside to deal with the mechanics of reporting on it. The work has to be done first.

The following morning, a Friday, is bitterly cold. My wife is readying my son for school and I go outside to warm up and defrost the car. There is a heavy ground frost, a ubiquitous shining spider’s web which covers everything.

The temperature gauge on the car says -4.

As the old engine grumbles into life and the gradual process of clearing the windscreen and windows of ice begins, I finally take a moment to think about Shane MacGowan. I am not an avid concert-goer but I have seen The Pogues play live three times.

Once was at Brixton Academy in London, accompanied by my younger brother just a few days before a distant Christmas. That evening remains one of my fondest memories.

Soon, I am typing out a message to my brother on the phone. “Do you remember the night...?”

I watch as the warm air begins its assault on what seems like an impenetrable wall of ice on the windscreen. I suspect that I might be sitting here for quite some time. I click on the radio to kill a few minutes.

But there is no sound immediately, no inane DJ chatter or pop song melody. I am momentarily confused, thinking perhaps the volume is down. Then, after a few seconds, a classical guitar plays the first bars of Fairytale of New York, giving way to a full orchestral version of Shane MacGowan’s most famous composition, shorn of its lyrics but remaining faithful to the original song.

I sit there shivering, surrounded by darkness and ice in my ancient old car while the little wireless plays a stringed arrangement of one of my favourite festive songs.

And now, for the first time, it’s beginning to feel a bit like Christmas.