A mong headlines above the countless newspaper articles about festive fare I spotted one on Saturday that greatly pleased me. It was in the Daily Telegraph’s Weekend section accompanying a contribution from wine writer Victoria Moore: “What to drink with Christmas dinner.”

My readers of more traditional bent might be able to guess what I liked about it. That’s right: the use of the word ‘dinner’ instead of the now ubiquitous — and quite ridiculous — ‘lunch’.

Exactly when this absurd genteelism came into vogue I can’t be sure. But I think it was not long after the invention of Sunday lunch. In my youth, all classes enjoyed an early afternoon main meal of the day that was called Sunday dinner.

Among the most famous of Christmas dinners was that eaten by Bob Cratchit and family after the repentant Scrooge’s gift of a giant turkey in Dickens’s A Christmas Carol.

“The one as big as me?” asks the boy sent to the poulterer as he seeks to identify the bird required. “It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim,” says Scrooge as his present is sent on its way.

Now there’s a puzzling aspect to this. Scrooge makes his purchase on Christmas morning when the church bells are already ringing out (odd that a poulterer should be trading then). He next heads for the Cratchits and announces that he has come to dinner.

But a massive bird such as he has bought, weighing in at, say, 30lb, would take at least seven hours to cook. Scrooge was in for a very long wait.