Let it be conceded that we cannot at this stage say with certainty that Jesus ever took a toke or nibbled a morsel of cannabis in his life. On the other hand, his life was a re-enactment of the lives of the Roman Attis, the Greek Dionysus, the Egyptian Osiris, the Persian Mithra, to say nothing of the Hittite Kumarbi, the Norse Baldur and the Mayan Gucumatz – all mid-winter virgin-born gods said to have encouraged and joined with devotees in achieving communion with heaven through rituals involving wine and/or sacred plants. (I tend to believe most will have preferred the weed to the wine, gods being intelligent beings who will surely have gone for the healthy option.)

The birth of Jesus was celebrated for centuries on January 6. Nowadays this is taken as the day of the Magi (brilliant name: the Magi), Zoroastrians whose top prophet encouraged a “shamanistic ecstasy” induced by the ingestion of consecrated leaves. The feast is still marked in rural Latvia and parts of Ukraine by the communal consumption of “sweet bread”. Hash cakes, obviously.
So, was Jesus a devil for the dope? I dissent from fanatical pro-dope campaigners who assert this as proven fact. But I think we can safely say that readers who even now are laying in a stash for the season that’s in it are keeping an authentic Xmas tradition alive.

A last-minute present for the peace-loving football fan in your life?
Readers will be aware that Lanarkshire has long been a rich recruiting area for the British Army. So Scottish Second Division side Airdrie FC thought it would be a canny wheeze to publish a special Remembrance Day programme for their match against Livingston on the weekend of the Poppy Madness.
The sepia-toned cover depicted soldiers departing for the front on a train, waving brave farewells to their distressed loved ones gathered on the platform, and the legend below – “Lest we forget!” A common phrase in the context. Except that in this case the troops waving goodbye were not in Scottish regimental uniforms but in the grey garb and distinctive spiked headgear of the German Army, circa 1914...
The game, won 1-0 by Livingston, was attended by 1,013 fans. But now many multiples of that number are trying to get their hands on a copy of the programme. Interest has been high among German fans in particular and continues to grow.
But here’s the thing. The number of copies apparently available seems not to have diminished, despite the unprecedentedly high sales.
How come? You are probably ahead of me. My spies in the area report a local consensus that the patriotic club is running off as many copies of the Hunnish memorabilium as it takes to meet demand.
Your Jock never misses a trick.

For the more pious among you: places are still available for the annual apparition of Our Lady of Medjugorje to the visionary Jacov Colo. Jacov is distinctive among the six Medjugorje seers in that he’s visited by the Mother of God only once a year – on the anniversary of her giving birth to Jesus.
“There are still places left!” announces the latest dispatch to reach me from Our Lady Queen of Peace Productions. “The dates are December 21-29, and the base price is $1,740 plus taxes.” Don’t waste time. Go right now to www.medjugorje-online.com/pilgrimage.php.
If you want to examine the product before committing your cash, check out www.medjugorjevideo.com/jakov_christmas.html, where you will be able to gaze for seven and a half minutes at Jacov as he gazes upon the Mother of God.
More than 15,000 Irish people have travelled to Medjugorje this year. Our Lady Queen of Peace Productions describes them as “very special” and “the keepers of the most glorious of Irish traditions”. Fianna Fáil voters, then.

This year’s last Xmas gift recommendation – The Autobiography of Mark Twain, just-published 100 years after his death. I’m going to read it during any periods of lucidity over the Xmas. I am recommending it in advance because Twain was a man of such fine wit and infinite wisdom.
“There are those who scoff at the schoolboy, calling him frivolous and shallow. Yet it was a schoolboy who said, ‘Faith is believing what you know ain’t so.’”
“I bring you the stately matron Christendom, returning bedraggled, besmirched, and dishonoured, from pirate raids in Kiao-Chou, Manchuria, South Africa, and the Phillipines, with her soul full of meanness, her pocket full of boodle, and her mouth full of pious hypocrisies.”
“Nothing agrees with me. If I drink coffee, it gives me dyspepsia; if I drink wine, it gives me the gout; if I go to church, it gives me dysentery.”
“It was not that Adam ate the apple for the apple’s sake, but because it was forbidden. It would have been better for us – oh infinitely better for us – if the serpent had been forbidden.”
“The approach of Christmas brings harassment and dread. Many excellent people put in three weeks of hard and anxious work, and when Christmas morning comes they want to sit down and cry. Then they give thanks that Christmas comes but once a year.”