The person who actually coined the term Winterval has been in touch with Andy Mabbett:

I am continually fascinated that the term Winterval, ever caused (and still does) such a furore.

Quite simply, as Head of events at that time, we needed a vehicle which could cover the marketing of a whole season of events – Diwali (festival of Lights), Christmas lights switch on, BBC Children in Need, Aston Hall by Candlelight, Chinese New year, New Years eve etc. Also a season that included theatre shows and open air ice rink, Frankfurt open air Christmas market and the Christmas seasonal retail offer. Christmas, called Christmas! and its celebration, lay at the heart of Winterval.

Political correctness was never the reasoning behind Winterval, but yes it was intended to be inclusive (which is no bad thing to my mind) and a brand to which other initiatives could be developed as part of The Winterval offer in order to sell the City at a time when all cities are competing against each other for the seasonal trade.

Read the rest of his explanation on Andy’s blog!

…you know when it’s the run-up to the Christmas season – the first ‘Winterval’ story of the year has appeared.

As we all know, the story’s claim about

“The increasing external pressures to secularise Christmas and even the attempts to rebrand it as ‘Winterval’”

is, of course, a plate of steaming prairie oysters:

“The council had drawn particular attention to the city’s Anglican cathedral during the festival by placing Christmas lights in the trees around the building, and the greeting “Happy Christmas Birmingham” hung in large lights over the main entrance to the Council House as it had done every other year”.

Tip to Andy Mabbett for the spot

Every year that venerable institution, They, likes to make the complaint that ‘Christmas gets earlier every year’, and how wrong it is that you can buy your crackers in October from the supermarket.

I was drawn to this news item by John Humphries foaming at the mouth on the Today programme at how terrible it is that Harrods has opened its Christmas shelf in the middle of August, 138 days before Christmas. Boy, was he foaming.

The thing is, whereas I might vaguely acknowledge They have grounds to moan on the general point (although I do wonder why They seem to let it spoil their day so), I think the complaint against Harrods was just plain stupid.

Let’s examine the points, shall we?

• Harrods is, basically, a tourist shop, selling tat to tourists,
• The height of the tourist season in London is August,
• Tourists by and large like to buy presents for the folks back home,
• People generally like to buy Christmas presents for people,

So is it any surprise that Harrods launches its Christmas range in August?