It has been coming for a while, and I acknowledge that a lot of valuable and important steps have been taken on the journey to eradicate the Redeemer from the festive season. The time is now right, I feel, to lose Christ from Christmas once and for all. More needs to be done before Scotland can justly lay claim to the coveted title of the best wee non-believing country in the world.

Each year, though, despite all our best efforts, the Saviour of the World stubbornly clings on to the festive season, sticking his holier-than-thou persona in places where it is plainly no longer wanted and making a nuisance of Himself. Can’t the Holy Spirit tell him that a chap ought to know when he’s overstayed His welcome?

It’s both refreshing and reassuring to stroll through the streets of urban, lowland Scotland and find them aglow from September onwards with all sorts of tasteful, neon iconography. There is such a riot of big electric Santas, snowmen, sleigh bells and reindeers that sometimes the entire street seems to be swaying to and fro. Whenever I observe these joyous scenes I keenly scan all the images, looking for signs of anything that remotely could be considered religious, such as angels, wise men or shepherds. Happily, it would seem that these foolish and superstitious symbols are gone for ever from Scotland’s residential neighbourhoods.

Most of my Christmas cards now seem to feature robins and paintings of thatched cottages in snowbound dales or just plain Season’s Greetings in a big, spangly font. This pleases me greatly as sometimes you can get too much of Caravaggio or El Greco and their misguided adoration of superstition and shallow sophistry. Christmas is a time when we should forget how much we have been fleeced by the banks and credit card companies during the year and try to enjoy ourselves. The last thing you need at this time of the year are these inert, medieval studies in poverty while you’re trying to have a bacchanal.

Soon the word 'Holy' will be removed from the name of the Scottish parliament and it will be called Jollyrood

In this respect, our political leaders should be commended for showing proper leadership on the Christmas card front. Each year, they choose shallow and reductive pop art or vapid paintings of fey lasses bearing saltires to convey the message of peace and goodwill in a non-binary, inclusive and diverse way. Last year was a record one for the number of families living in poverty and the proliferation of food banks. These wretched people simply don’t need to be reminded of their plight by paintings of babies being born in a manger among cows and sheep. The Scottish government long ago removed the word Christmas, preferring, instead, to deploy the phrase “winter festival”. Thus the old, narrow and outmoded concept of Christmas has been expanded to include a wide assortment of carnivals and events celebrating self-gratification, excess and epicureanism for the diversion of the middle classes, this administration’s target voters. Soon the word “Holy” will be removed from the name of the Scottish parliament and it will be called Jollyrood.

There are still, though, pockets of resistance from adherents of the old ways. Too many Christmas cards bearing the discredited nativity scene are still being sold. And, unconscionably, Glasgow city council still insists on erecting its silly manger on George Square with lifesize carvings of the ridiculous fairytale characters such as the Three Wise Men.

Catholic schools are still hotbeds of all this superstition. Of course, there ought not to be any room for these sinister faith establishments in a modern, diverse, inclusive and tolerant Scotland but, until such times as they are wiped off the face of the country altogether, we each have a moral responsibility to strive for a Scotland where one size fits all and we are all marching to the same tune.

Affirmative action is needed to ensure that our children are spared much more exposure to the damaging messages of Christ and his alleged virgin birth. So I hereby propose a re-working of the nativity story to include messages of equality and sustainability. This would also have an undeniable climate change undertow, and have outcomes.

And Lo, Good King Herod, who was fighting a lone battle to preserve the planet’s natural resources, issued the following harsh but fair decree: all children must be slain on sight.

And there existed in this kingdom a lowly couple called Kim, from the house of Kardashian, and Harry, from the House of Nobby Styles, a carpenter. Kim was pregnant and feared for her child’s safety. So they fled to Glasgow and while they were there, the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her first-born, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no guest room available for them. This was because there were too many people in Scotland buying second and third homes.

And there were shepherds living out in the fields nearby, keeping watch over their flocks at night and hatching a bold stratagem, under cover of darkness, to organise a community buy-out of the land that they worked under the new land reform legislation.

Soon they were surrounded by a bright light, and they heard a voice saying: “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today a Saviour has been born to you – he is the Messiah who will lead you to glory in the year 2022 in the hot land east of here that some have called Qatar. For his real mother is Brazilian and his real father is Argentinian.

And then three wee kings in strange clothes arrived bearing gifts of Moët, Chanel and jojoba. Their names were Antanddek, Len and Cowal and they represented the major kingdoms of the world. “We had to see the Reality Child,” said King Antanddek. “He will grow up to be king of the world and unite all the peoples in peace while moving in the one direction together.”

And when King Len gazed upon the child, he said: “From Len, a ten.”