Christmas brings out the child in all of us

Young people would show up at the usual time, some ready for the festivities, others completely taken by surprise. We would play silly games in the hall - those time-honoured team-building activities such as passing a balloon between the legs or an orange under the chin.

I started to do this after visiting a youth project in a converted chapel. Upstairs they had put in a false floor and installed a bouncy castle. Those bouncing up and down were cool-dude teenagers in all the right attire but without their shoes on. Instantly, I realised how important it was for teenagers to be children once again. Hence our Christmas parties. We played pass the parcel, where the end prize (usually a bar of chocolate) was quite unimportant. We played musical chairs, which was often somewhat rougher than we remembered - burly and competitive teenagers are more physical than small children. And then we sat down for jelly and cakes, telling stories and cracking jokes.