At Christmas I miss the hills of Northern England. I can remember many a Boxing Day when we worked off the turkey and plum pudding by an exhilarating walk up Pen-y-Ghent or Ingleborough.

I can even remember chunks of ice in the Swale below Aysgarth Falls. And I will never forget the rare bright blue and white day when Christmas saw the Dales snow-coated under a frosty sun: earth standing hard as iron, water like a stone. But the City of London gets into the seasonal spirit too.

At the last count, I have been to upwards of a dozen carol services. Happily, City livery halls have not yet been banned from putting these on for fear they might be "offensive" to minorities - though some schools have abandoned this lovely and perfectly harmless old tradition, so depriving the children in their care of an evocative presentation of the story of the child who is the meaning of Christmas.

No such squeamishness here. After more Christmases than I care to count, I still thrill to the scene by the church door, the tree full of lights and the crib set out by the font - that moment when the soprano solo begins the first verse of Once in Royal David's City.

Yesterday, St Michael's was packed for the lessons and carols and we were treated once again to that heart-melting tune to In the Bleak Midwinter by the man who was our organist for most of the 20th century. Harold Darke gave an organ recital here every Monday from 1916 until his retirement in 1966. People still remember him stumbling through the rubble of the Blitz up Cornhill from the Royal Exchange so as not to disappoint his loyal audience.

There are, I've discovered, two sorts of church organists: the great majority who talk tediously about pedal power and what a long pipe they've got and the glorious minority who are actually musical. Harold was definitely one of the musical sort.

It's heartening to see the way revellers turn religious at Christmas and fill the churches to sing the familiar carols and hear the Christmas story from the real Bible - The King James Authorised Version. Beware of trashy modern alternatives which have the Christ child wrapped not "in swaddling clothes" but in "strips of cloth". You couldn't invent such banality. I suspect the people who produce modern forms of scripture and prayers of being agents for militant atheism whose aim is to dispel all sense of faith, along with all the beauty of it, and empty the churches.

What's so cheering is to see the way people turn out in shoals if you give them the real thing. And after the service, drinks and mince pies at the back of church as once again in the dead of winter the City ledgers are closed, the insistent computer screens switched off and the jabbering emails ignored. For a day or two at least we have better things to do.

I'm looking forward to our big choral service on Christmas Day - Mozart's "Credo" Mass. Then to pull up the drawbridge, take the phone off the hook and get stuck into some excellent fillet steak from our local butcher - Smithfield market. Have a merry Christmas folks and, as Tiny Tim said: "God bless us every one!"

* Peter Mullen is Rector of St Michael's, Cornhill, in the City of London, and Chaplain to the Stock Exchange.