I still feel a spike of anticipation when 'O Come, O Come, Emmanuel' strikes up and, in these andropausal years, I am unexpectedly moved by 'Away in a Manger'.
— Richard Coles
Jesus comes among us, in our all division, not to instruct, comfort or inspire but to die. In doing so, He answers the sum of our self-regard, stupidity and cruelty.
One of the pleasures of living in London is the opportunity to do things that are only possible in a city of its size.
What I wear identifies me as a priest. I don't agree with all this trying to appear 'normal'. If you want that to be normal, don't take off your dog collar and then put it on again, because what you're doing is playing along with the view that wearing one makes you odd.
I was licensed and installed as 59th Vicar of St Mary the Virgin, Finedon, in Northamptonshire, in 2011.
The thing I worry about with religion isn't to do much with forgetting Christmas. It's to do with religion being angry and violent.
I don't think of myself as a maverick at all. Quite the opposite - I really think of myself as quite conventional but dispersed over unusual territory.
I can't turn the clock back but I can seek the forgiveness of those I've wronged.
In my opinion, the best of the knockout cookery series is 'MasterChef', which I have watched since Loyd Grossman's day, back in the 1990s.
I am not in favour of hierarchies that grant privileges to members who fail to uphold those values - there are plenty of those - but the monarchy is really the Queen, who is of unimpeachable integrity and the longest serving head of state in the world, and who never puts a foot wrong.
I'm not the first Christian to have a fruity past. I hesitate to compare myself to St Augustine or St Paul, but there is a precedent for this sort of thing.
I don't have any ambitions. I am looking forward to retiring, or at least having more time. When I was young I wanted more stuff, now I am older, I want more time.
In the church I am very accountable, to the parish and the deanery; in the media thing I am not really accountable, I am out there on my own as a sort of busy, recognised religious person.
I don't think you need to justify faith, faith is its own justification.
You find you have a lot of friends when you are rich and idle.
I started playing the piano aged four in an effort to copy Grandpa, who was constantly showing off and entertaining us all, singing comic songs on his baby grand.
God chooses to arrive among the poor and the insignificant and the politically awkward, so what are we missing when we overlook them?
The first Christians were formed by the first Easter into a new community that transcended all other commitments, encompassing the tax collector Matthew, a lackey of the occupying Romans, and Simon the Zealot, an insurrectionist.
I just looked preposterous. It would be 'King Lear' and I'd walk on with Cordelia's dead body in my arms and the audience would hoot with laughter. The only time they didn't laugh was when I was doing comedy.
The dog collar is fascinating to people, when it doesn't repel. I've got used to being shouted at in the street.
Trying to do Christianity properly is tough. Life as a priest is rigorous and disciplined. It involves sacrifices.
I frequently find myself praying for punk, for something to come along and upset everybody and ignite a few fires and behave disreputably.
This unthinking assumption of moral virtue on the Left is frustrating. I saw someone on Facebook talking about capitalist scum, he was angry and thought it was OK because his anger was righteous.
The thought of having sclerosis of the synapses is alarming. I wonder if in later life I will pay the price for having overstimulated my mental apparatus in my twenties.
Food as sport is nothing new. To a vicar, especially, church catering has represented the conduct of war by other means for many years.
Music has given me a decent pension. I am in that rare position for a clergyman of having some provision for my retirement. Thank you, young people of Europe.
But it's true I hadn't realised quite how much the discipleship of Jesus Christ would involve keeping up with email.
I think that Christians should have confidence, we have always been part of the mainstream conversation, and if we don't join in often what you hear gets hectoring and mad, just people on the margins.
I completely understand why people would find the Church intolerable. I'm not the least bit surprised when people seek to leave it, though I miss them and I wish they'd stay. But I sometimes think you leave to come back, and that's certainly true in my case.
I love talking about myself.
I got lucky with my parents. They were unfailingly loving and supportive, which gave me confidence about my place in the world.
I was the middle child of three boys and grew up in the village of Barton Seagrave near Kettering, Northamptonshire. My father, Nigel, followed his father, Keith, into shoe manufacturing.
My means of entry to 'Christianity was singing in a choir. As a boy chorister, I grew up with Ancient and Modern, the evening canticles, versicles and responses, and carols.
A certain check to the sentimentality and commercialism of Christmas is the cluster of bereavements that often arrives towards the end of the year.
I am loathe to say I have a strategy in the broadcasting work I do, but I do think it is possible to be a priest who has something to contribute to mainstream media as long as you aren't completely mad.
In corporate life, I have noticed, it is getting harder and harder to say that things are bad.
I will be doing a lot of human interest interviews. It involves empathising and listening. Which is a lot of what my day job is about. And, frankly, the priesthood isn't without its element of showbusiness.
I wanted to put together a Christmas album that went back to the stable in Bethlehem and the source of it all. It kind of gets lost sometimes.
I'm looking for some centrist political party to find a home in and it's not there, actually.
I remember in one parish a terrible row over the ideal size of mince pies, and in another two great ladies dashing trays of pancakes to the vicarage floor in a controversy over whether to roll or to fold. But the real arena for food combat is television.
Like most people, I cook about a dozen dishes, over and over again, and to stretch the menu has meant stretching my competence to breaking point.
My dachshunds are not substitutes for children. But the pattering of tiny feet around the place is a joy.
Generally on a Saturday I come home wreathed in media glamour having interviewed a former Krankie or someone, and suddenly I am back in the world of orange blossom and bells.
I spend much of my time in a broadly liberal secular world but I don't belong to it, I belong somewhere else.
I was born into the Church of England but in the most nominal way possible you can imagine, so it's Christmas and Easter. And then like a great many clergy in the Church of England I actually got nobbled by being a chorister.
I suppose I've always had a very genuine curiosity about religion. I loved the atmosphere of churches, the ethos; I adored Evensong.
Grandpa Keith made shoes for Adam Faith and George Best. I was dazzled by such people. As a teenager, I was haunted by the idea of people living glamorously beyond my provincial horizons.
There's more of me on Twitter than there is in real life.
