Yuletide celebrations are not universal. We will be conscious this year, more than most, that Christmas has no place in the Islamic tradition. And nearer to home, the Puritans of Cromwell's Commonwealth in England frowned on Christmas, and decreed that December 25th should be a market day. Even the eating of plum pudding or mince pies that day was banned; it was held to be a heathen practice, and abhorrent.
But perhaps Cromwell had a point. Although by tradition we celebrate the birth of Christ on December 25th, we are well aware nowadays that it is most unlikely that this day was, in fact, the day on which the Lord was born. The Gospels are largely silent on the issue. The best clue to the year, perhaps, is that given by St Luke when he tells us: "It came to pass that in those days there went forth an edict from Caesar Augustus for the registration of the whole world, which occurred for the first time when Quirinius was Governor of Syria." This and other information seems to set the year at about 4 BC.
Whatever the truth, by the end of the 4th century AD, December 25th had been generally accepted as the day of celebration. It may well have been chosen to coincide with - or oppose - the pagan festival of natalis invicti, which marks the "rebirth" of the sun after the winter solstice. This was an occasion for merry-making in the Roman culture, and many of the accoutrements of our modern Christmas, like evergreens and lights and the colour red, have had their origins in the rituals associated with this solar renaissance. In any event, as Addison's Sir Roger de Coverley remarks to his assembled guests, "It happens very well that Christmas Day should fall out in the middle of winter."
But even if the Lord Protector's notion has a certain logic, individual meteorologists, in general, do not subscribe to a Cromwellian view of Christmas. The science itself, however, is a soupcon Puritanical; in the world of weather, Christmas is a day like any other, and the observational routine must be maintained. For 24 hours of each day throughout the Christmas period weather observations will be made on the hour, every hour, and forecasts will continue to be issued. Tomorrow, as you eat your Christmas dinner, a team of some 20 weather-people dispersed around the country will be hard at work, quietly and anonymously treading Horace's fallentis semita vitae - "the pathway of a little-noticed way of life".