OVER the years, I have learned quite a lot about Christmas. And here are what I think are the 20 most relevant factors of the festive season:

1. You can never have too much chocolate.

2. Make your food list. Then cut it in half. Discard another ten items. And you'll still have far too much.

3. Cheap sticky tape is false economy.

4. Men always choose huge trees. Bad enough getting home into the house. Much worse getting them out again in a shower of needles.

5. The last post on Christmas Eve always brings a card from someone you haven't sent one to.

6. Everyone gives the best selling book. This means the average home will have five copies.

7. Only one person in four actually likes turkey.

8. Only one in ten likes Christmas cake. By mid-January, even the birds aren't fussed.

9. Expensive wrapping paper is wasted on anyone under 20.

10. Marks & Spencer make brandy sauce better than I do.

11. But I make better mince pies.

12. Cooking your turkey on Christmas Eve frees the oven on Christmas Day and means you can have hot turkey sandwiches when you come in from church or the pub.

13. Wrapping presents always takes much, much longer than you think. And makes your back ache.

14. No one's too old or too grown up for a Christmas stocking.

15. However carefully you put the tree lights away, they will have tied themselves in a knot by next year.

16. The best games are the simplest. Anything more complicated than Snap, Jenga or Snakes and Ladders needs more brain cells than the average family can manage by Christmas afternoon.

17. Christmas as seen in glossy magazines does not exist. And if it did, we wouldn't like it anyway.

18. Actually, you can have too much chocolate. Especially children. Especially before breakfast. Think about it.

19. The more things go wrong, the better the stories for next Christmas, and the one after and the one after that.

20. Christmas is not compulsory. A relaxed Christmas is much more fun than a perfect one. Do it your way or not at all. After all, it will soon be over.

AN early morning trip to Northallerton yesterday was like driving though a real-life Christmas card. A stunning sunrise then the fields thick with frost and ice, glinting in the winter sun.

OK, my toes were cold. But it was still somehow reassuring to think that winter might finally be here.