In order to take a debate forward, first, you often have to step back. Take, for example, the perennial seasonal debate about "the true meaning of Christmas". The argument is doomed to go round and round in circles unless we stand back and ask the deeper question: "What's the true meaning of true meaning'?"

In order to take a debate forward, first, you often have to step back. Take, for example, the perennial seasonal debate about "the true meaning of Christmas". The argument is doomed to go round and round in circles unless we stand back and ask the deeper question: "What's the true meaning of true meaning'?"

The first word to be suspicious of here is "true". The philosopher Antony Flew told a wonderful story that captures how the adjective is often abused. A Scotsman picked up the paper and read a tale of sexual depravity south of the border. "No Scotsman would ever do such a thing!" he tut-tutted. The next day, however, another story appeared of a Glaswegian who did just that. "No true Scotsman would have done such a thing!" the man replied, his world view left intact by the careful use of a spurious qualification.

"True" and "real" often function in this way, as markers of our own ideal of authenticity, not as a factual description of the way things are. This kind of self-serving bias is also found in the debate about the true meaning of Christmas. Atheists go on about how it was a pagan midwinter festival way before it was appropriated by Christianity, whereas believers point out that the word "Christ" in the day's name is a bit of a clue as to what the celebration is really about.

Both arguments make a fundamental error. They see the real meaning of Christmas as residing in its origins. But "original" is not the same as "true". The only objective way to judge the true meaning of Christmas is to adopt a Martian-eye's view and look at how it really is. The picture that emerges neither flatters nor damns modern society. Both midwinter and the birth of Christ, however, have little to do with it.

The first obvious truth about contemporary Christmas is that it is largely about spending money. That's why the papers are so obsessed with high-street sales: whole sectors of the economy depend on them.

The second indisputable fact is that Christmas is a time for another kind of consumption. Adverts for indigestion tablets and headache pills reach peak saturation point around now, with good reason. Many more people eat and drink too much over the holidays than sing carols.

But the third feature is that Christmas is, for the large majority, about family. Indeed, if Yuletide were not about people coming together, all that money would not be spent on presents. This can be alienating for people who either don't have close family, or choose to have nothing to do with them. Although I am fully behind anyone who wants nothing to do with Christmas for these reasons, the fact that so many families do seek to spend the festive season together - rows and tensions notwithstanding - is surely a good thing.

Whether this objective view of the reality of Christmas depresses or cheers depends on whether you see the bottle of Baileys as half-empty or half-full. On the debit side, we are a society that places too much emphasis on consumption - material, dietary and alcoholic. But to our credit, despite much talk of the fragmentation of society, we still place a lot of importance on families and close friends, which are increasingly seen as belonging to the same category. Like society as a whole, the family is an institution which, despite its irritations and imperfections, most of us would not choose to be without. Our atheist or religious beliefs may make us want to see it differently, but that, for better or worse, is the true meaning of Christmas as it is really lived today.