Christmas is evolving into a pagan consumer festival to better appeal to a multi-cultural society and amid growing fears of litigation. The trend was highlighted in 2002 when the British Red Cross first implemented a policy to not display Christmas decorations in any of their 430 UK Charity Shops. The pace of change has been accelerating since. This year a report by the employment law firm Peninsula reveals that three out of four UK employers now ban festive decorations so as not to offend people of other faiths or because they fear litigation on the grounds of discrimination.

Health and Safety rules are also being blamed for the clampdown on yuletide tinsel with a spokesperson at Tower Hamlets local council defending their decision by maintaining "There's a concern people might hurt themselves trying to attach hanging decorations from the ceiling." The Royal Bank of Scotland has asked its staff to book an engineer if they want to hang cards on a string. Other employers are claiming the baubles and tinsel simply look unprofessional.

The Royal Mail seasonal stamps now exclude religious imagery and the majority of corporate cards you now receive are unlikely to contain the word Christmas or scenes of the nativity. Instead the cards are likely to wish you "Seasons Greetings" and feature winter scenes or a festive penguin. If the trend we see this year which has included refuse collectors in Kingston-upon-Hull being banned from wearing Santa hats, Wokingham District Council taking out an injunction against millionaire Vic Moszczynski for decorating the outside of his home, a college in Rotherham looking to replace traditional turkey lunch with halal chicken prepared according to Muslim beliefs, then I think we can predict that Christmas will have been replaced within twenty years by a pagan consumer festival and it's origins completely forgotten.

What is Christmas about anyway?