And could possible be obscene. That means I will be doing a lot more of it this Christmas.

Wishing people a Happy Christmas could be seen as an “insult” or even an “obscenity” as not everyone is in a position to celebrate, a bishop has warned.

The Right Reverend Humphrey Southern, the Bishop of Repton, said it was a “hollow” greeting to make to those who were suffering.

People should not “simply make a cocoon of happiness for ourselves and our loved ones” at Christmas, he said.

Writing in the monthly Derby diocese newsletter, he said: “This is the ‘Happy Christmas’ month. Yet to many that greeting will be hollow, coming as an insult, or even an obscenity.”

Trust an Anglican clergyman to come up with such an innovative idea: let’s make everyone feel miserable at Christmas.It appears to have eluded the Right Daft Reverend Humphrey Southern that Christmas is a celebration of the incarnation of the Son of God who came into the world to save us from our sins; this is something that should make us happy.

I am starting to suspect that mainline churches are becoming ashamed of Christmas. Driving home this evening we passed a United Church which brazenly advertised a Holiday Jingle, while a school almost next door had a sign for its Christmas Concert.