Don't worry, Christmas isn't really going to be cancelled in Edinburgh this year – Susan Dalgety

The housing market could be about to go into freefall, with the double whammy of unaffordable monthly mortgage payments and negative equity. (For those of you too young to remember the late 1980s and early 90s, a previous Tory government crashed the housing market so badly that many people had loans worth far more than their actual house. It was a terrible time.)

Factor in ten per cent food inflation, energy bills so high it is too risky to switch on the heating and a general feeling of doom, and you have a country that is on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

And here in Edinburgh it has just got worse, with news that Christmas may be cancelled. Edinburgh’s Christmas – the festival run by the council – that is, not the annual celebration of Jesus Christ’s birth enjoyed by billions across the world.

German company Angels Event Experience only won the contract to stage the Capital’s Christmas extravaganza in June this year, and while there has been no public reason given why they have pulled out of the £5 million contract, my guess is they couldn’t make the numbers stack up.

Local companies Unique Events and Assembly Festival look set to come to the rescue. They are in urgent talks with the council on how best to celebrate Christmas.

With only a few weeks to go until the festivities are due to kick off on November 19, the odds are that Edinburgh’s 2022 Christmas festival will be a more modest affair than in recent years – in tune with the rest of us.

We will all be cutting back on Christmas this year if the financial forecasts are anything to go by, so it makes sense that the city-wide fun is less glitzy.

That doesn’t mean it will be less fun. Edinburgh is the perfect Christmas city, with the Castle providing the perfect backdrop. And after a glass or two of too-hot gluhwein, we will all be so merry we won’t notice the decorations are more Poundland than John Lewis this year. Nor care.