RICHARD ORD: It's beginning to look a lot like... a Satan-loving beagle Christmas

Don't be fooled by the cute looks. Beagles worship the devil.

My current life-partner felt her dogs couldn’t miss out on Christmas and so bought them an advent calendar filled with dog treats.

Nothing says Christmas like the baby Jesus fashioned out of reconstituted chicken meat and bone marrow.

To be honest, I don’t think the treats themselves are Christmas themed.

I guess whittling a pile of dried turkey giblets into the image of Mary and Joseph maybe sails too close to the wind. Bound to upset the thinner skinned God botherers.

As much as I’d be impressed by intricate meat-based dioramas, it’s an attention to biblical detail that would be wasted on the dogs. If I was to guess which religion the beagles lean towards, I’d say probably devil worship.

Not just my girlfriend’s dogs, but all dogs. Satanists, the lot of them. I know you shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but I’d say most hounds are in league with the devil. Furry ears, fangs, all that barking and howling at the moon. They’ve even got tails for goodness sake!

Maybe the dog treat Christmas advent calendar is an attempt to lure these pooch fiends from the dark side. I’ll put in a call to the Church of England press office and get back to you.

The cover of the advent calendar features dogs in Santa hats gathered around a Christmas tree pulling crackers and exchanging gifts. Nice try, but I think we’re a long way from that being the dog norm. They want to bite the treat and, if possible, one of your fingers while they’re at it.

With the beagles getting an advent calendar, I feel short changed. A quick bit of Googling and it’s clear we’ve come a long way since I first began opening advent calendars in the 1970s: No gift, just a picture. It was the age of wonder. My children would describe that wonder as being ‘I wonder why they bothered?’

Luxury advent calendars are now all the rage. John Lewis does a fancy one for about £200, loaded up with beauty products. I’m stocked up with lip glosses, so would prefer the Master of Malt advent calendar (a snip at £10,000) which has each day filled with old and rare whiskies.

With the beauty calendar, the woman in your life uses the products (a new one behind every window) to enhance her looks with every passing day.

The whisky advent calendar presumably works the same way. The more you drink the better she looks. I dunno.