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From Canon Ann Easter, Chief Executive of a Charity and Chaplain to the Queen:

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I think most families have their Christmas traditions – some stranger than others! My Joan Baez Christmas record – one of the first LP’s I ever bought – comes out on Christmas Eve and not before, but is then played incessantly till everyone‘s sick to death of it! And Christopher’s gifts to me are always immaculately wrapped in matching paper with ribbons and tags, while my gifts to him are as they came out of the shop!! I used to worry about it but now, of course, the more untidy they are, the funnier it is!

And we always have an outing to at least one pantomime. My nan used to take us and all our cousins; my dad took my children and we now take our grandchildren – watching them, watching it, is just magical.

I think that pantomime is an important part of Christmas and it says a lot about the Christmas truth. When we realise that the clumsy lady in the mad wig is really a man, and the dashing hero’s a woman, and we find a fantasy world where mice turn into horses and pumpkins into carriages, we learn that things are often more than they at first seem and that it’s fun to imagine what if?

Then there’s the villain who’s frightening and we have to look through our fingers and gasp, but we can all yell and boo at them and we know that, by the end of the show, they’ll either be turned into a puff of smoke or they’ll see the error of their ways.Ìý A reminder that what frightens us is often a façade which might well disintegrate or be transformed in the face of laughter, especially if we’ve got somebody to laugh with.

And then, in pantomime, everything is brought together with a slap of the thigh and a kiss – happy ever after? Well, it’s a nice hope to cherish – and having that hope keeps us going through Christmas when he’s got the wrong drinks or she’s getting uptight about the turkey.

But of course, the ultimate truth of pantomime and Christmas is that, in the end, it’s always love that wins.