I have been known to visit the odd pub on occasions and, unsurprisingly, the festive season is no exception.

Christmas Eve was a reasonable session, but I managed to creep back in before midnight struck. On the big day I was much more restrained and it was just a few jars between midday and 2pm before heading home to enjoy all the trimmings.

On Boxing Day I maintained an element of restraint but as The Swan was serving Bathams Bitter I felt it would have been rude not to partake.

Safe to say, I’m following the advice I’ve been handing out to others for years – ‘Use ‘em or lose ‘em’.

But, I was rudely awoken from my slumbers early on Christmas Day by the deafening sound of church bells clanging away at a ridiculous level.

However, as I lay there thinking: ‘What sort of hour is this to shake God-fearing folk from their beds?” it did occur to me the ‘use them, or lose them’ analogy must also apply to churches.

But, forget Christmas for a minute, when did you last visit your local?

Maybe if you live in a friendly village which hosts a bustling boozer it might have been ‘last night’, but I suspect the decline of pubs means many folk would need to dredge their memory more carefully. Statistically, more than two out of five adults never go to the pub but there’s no point in the drinks trade worrying about them, they’ve already lost them. What they need to worry about is folks who think of themselves as ‘regulars’ who haven’t had a pint pulled for them for months.

And, having already been bonged out of bed, as I watched yet another bloody re-run of Vicar of Dibley it struck me churches face exactly the same problem.

Almost half of us identify as being Christian, 46 per cent in the last census (although the figure had dropped 13 per cent in just 10 years), but only a third go to church at Christmas and for most of these, this is their sole visit.

Mind you, whenever I’m diverted down another Kent lane due to another pesky road closure I see far more churches than I do pubs and this is because the church has far bigger pockets than the brewery trade has ever had and certainly more than it ever will have.

I’ve heard bearded Camra types saying pubs need to engage more with their community and I’m sure revs receive the same advice.

But it’s not that easy, many blokes used to spend evenings in the pub but couples and families now spend more time together and it’s a lot easier, not to mention cheaper, to share a box set or a download than a pint.

For now, we’ll continue to bemoan the loss of our favourite institutions but most of us will rely on others to do our drinking and praying for us and then blame these very same people when village pubs and churches have disappeared forever. So I repeat, make your 2024 resolution to ‘use them’.