Deck the halls with boughs of environmentally sustainable holly, ’tis fast approaching the season to be jolly. And while you’re at it, bring out the illuminated Santas, the amusing flashing reindeer and the nativity scenes.

Unless, that is, you live in Havant or any of the other places that can’t bring themselves to utter the C-word. The council in this Hampshire town was the latest local authority to organise a multicultural Festival of Lights instead of traditional Christmas illuminations.

At least, that’s what officials had planned before The Sun newspaper sent a delegation to the town hall last week featuring page 3 models dressed as Santa, a man in a reindeer suit, somebody pretending to be a snowman and a human Christmas tree. Faced with such overwhelming force, the council has changed its mind. There will be Christmas in Havant after all. Ding dong merrily on high.

The hamfisted attempt at multiculturalism has now become a traditional part of the festive season alongside carols from the Rotary club, the office party and indigestion.

The usual form is that a local authority decides to play down Christmas on the grounds that it might offend non-Christians. There is immediate outrage in the newspapers, which comb the area for anybody who might have been offended. Amazing to report, they never find anybody. In fact, a Muslim councillor is often available to say that this is “political correctness gone mad”.

And he’s right. What could be more damaging to race relations than the idea that Muslims — or anybody else — want to ban Christmas? The tradition appears to have started in Birmingham, which in 1999 coined the term Winterval to cover the winter festivals of Diwali, Hanukkah and Christmas.

Yet even that city has now abandoned this farce and is putting on its embarrassing Santa hat along with the rest of us. If you are in the city over the next few weeks you can enjoy a Christmas parade, a Christmas grotto, a Christmas market, a visit by Christmas reindeer and a Christmas display of canal boats. O come all ye faithful, not to mention ye less than faithful.

There is one religious group that might be offended by the modern Christmas — and that’s Christians. Because let’s not kid ourselves: for most families Christmas has long ceased to be any sort of religious festival. Have the tipsy revellers in the back row of pews at midnight mass come to share the wonder of the virgin birth? Or because candles make the church look rather pretty at this time of year?

Many of us are no longer celebrating the birth of Christ over the festive season. We are merely enjoying a good knees-up in the middle of winter in the way that people have done for centuries.

The trappings are there. The churches do good business and nativity scenes still decorate shop windows. But as for the rest of it? Perhaps a theologian could direct me to the piece of scripture that commands: “Go unto Boots during its special late-night Christmas shopping event, for there ye shall find that gift box of assorted bath salts that might just do for your mother”. Or the verse that suggests: “And lo, get thee to B&Q where you can find enough Christmas lights to cover your house and really annoy the neighbours”.

Perhaps the local authority attempts to play down Christmas are a form of poetic justice. Because our town halls are only doing to the Christians what the Christians did about 1,700 years ago to the pagans.

My theology is a little shaky, but as far as I can make out there is little firm evidence to suggest that Christ was born on December 25. The early Christians chose this date because it happened to coincide with several other winter festivals.

The church elegantly grafted its own celebration on to the Roman festival of Saturnalia, and it became established when Emperor Constantine I converted to Christianity in AD324.

Although the main celebration of Saturnalia was held on December 25, the festival lasted for 12 days. Families feasted and exchanged small gifts. Sound at all familiar? All that was missing from the Roman celebration was the Little Britain Christmas Special.

Meanwhile the Germans and Scandinavians celebrated yule at about the same time. From this we get the traditions of Christmas trees, more feasting, hanging up mistletoe and holly and the yule log.

Other parts of the festive format are even more the product of other countries.

Father Christmas can be traced back to the Norse god Odin or a Turkish bishop, St Nicholas of Myra, or St Basil, a Greek bishop. Take your pick. He was first depicted in a coat of many colours, then a green tunic and then the red that we know today.

The red look really took off in 1931 when it featured in an advertisement in the United States for Coca-Cola, which is apparently what Santa enjoyed after delivering gifts.

So it’s Norse, Roman, Turkish, Greek and there is some evidence to suggest that the Christmas celebration was inspired by similar feasts in Egypt and Mesopotamia. There is absolutely no need for council officials to try to make Christmas more multicultural. It already is.

Jeremy Clarkson is away