Now that the turkey’s been eaten and Sunderland beaten this fine midwinter holiday has left me asking myself some intriguing questions:

What is the point of TV bosses scheduling Christmas cookery shows on Christmas Eve?  It’s not as if the local garage is likely to have the ingredients required for one of Mr Ramsay’s dishes should one feel sufficiently inspired. Why are Christmas decorations in our high streets so unremittingly naff – other countries do it so much better? Why should anyone care that the Liberal leader is an atheist? Could there ever be another Pope Anthony? Why do some politicians still think that nobody will notice when they use the holiday season to ‘bury bad news’ and reinstate their ‘chief of staff’? Can anyone explain what happened at White Hart Lane? And do we really need sales that start at five, six or seven in the morning?

These days many businesses (mine included) close for the whole of the holiday period. It makes commercial sense to close, giving everyone a good break, if most of your customers are also closed. We are lucky – not everyone is in the same position. Vital services must continue to operate and many businesses gain commercially by opening over the holiday period.

These things evolve. I remember as a young child getting on the bus on Christmas Day to go to my grandparents’ house. Public transport, then considered essential, now shuts down. In retail the trend has gone the other way. Longer opening hours and bank holiday opening have been a reality for many years, but with sales that open at 5am is it getting out of hand?

Why should the opening time matter? After all a bargain at 5am will be exactly the same bargain at 11am a 70% discount at 6am is still a 70% discount at midday. As a member of that much ridiculed minority group ‘men who like to shop’ I love a bargain like the best of them, but in my book you have to be downright weird or utterly desperate to get up 4am to go to the sales. If you ask me 4am is a time to consider going to bed, not for waking up thinking ‘I must go out to buy a sofa’!

Of course for those stores who indulge in this nonsense it is all about getting their sale noticed. Making it stick in the mind of TV viewers and creating footfall. But that still means some poor soul has to go into work at some crazy hour.

I talked to a quite a few shop workers during a Thursday evening in Reading while shopping. They had mostly worked long shifts and faced more of the same for up till Christmas Eve. Shop work is hard work – you don’t do it unless you need the money, and Christmas can provide an opportunity to earn more. But many working in shops don’t have a choice and deserve a bit of protection from the madness of being asked to get up at four the morning after a holiday to open a store. How many can afford to refuse?

When the Sunday trading laws were changed to allow sensible shopping on what is for most a day off, limits were set on trading hours, partly as a sop to the minority of practicing Christians but also to give retail staff some protection. Isn’t it now about time we had some limits around holiday trading to ensure first that the minority who work in retail get a sensible break?

It wouldn’t hurt retail – they would just find more sensible ways to compete.