“HARK the herald angels sing? We’d rather hear the tills “kerching” ….. that’s the anthem of credit-crunch Christmas 2008.

In UK towns and cities from Bolton to Basildon, we’ve so lost touch with the true spirit of this festive season that the “Christmas story” is now a tale of woe that we’ve not got enough cash to blow thousands on presents.

Suddenly, there’s drama because we can’t afford a mini-motorbike for young Tyrone or the latest Blackberry with email and news hot from the High Street for little Leanne.

For some people, especially the elderly, the current financial strictures may mean the choice between keeping warm and eating well — which makes the dedication to luxury spending even more obscene.

So perhaps having to watch what’s in our purses and wallets this festive season finally offers us the opportunity to go back to something less commercial and much simpler.

Most of us will certainly be cutting back on the overall amount we spend in the coming weeks, simply because we haven’t got it.

But there will still be many with the “buy now, pay whenever” approach to credit which got us into this mess in the first place. Long before we lost our sense of proportion about what really makes a good Christmas, this was a season of genuine giving, of spending time with people, of fairly modest gifts and of a small amount of over-eating largely confined to December 25.

Now, we have parties, feasting, drinking and (horrors!) fireworks from the end of November to early January, and presents of ridiculous proportions for children made selfish by keeping up with their mates.

Whatever happened to just getting together as a family, or with friends and relatives, and enjoying games and innocent fun? Booze was always enjoyed but not everyone drank until they were comatose, and everyone still had a full stomach from plenty of traditional food. You might even — steady on — have been to church in the morning or Christingle service the night before.

Now it seems that Christmas has become only about luxury gifts, hangovers and dossing in front of the telly for days on end.

Let’s make the season of goodwill just that — and let ourselves off the financial hook for once to re-discover the basic formula of this truly important time of year.