It's already snowing on the outskirts of London. Last weekend, I took the kids for Sunday lunch and watched the flakes fall in front of the restaurant window, settling on the bushes and leaving a feathery coating all over the path. There were soon footsteps in the fresh flurries, as Santa Claus strolled along the window ledge, cleaning the windows so we could look down over the River Thames. "He's just a man dressed up," shouted three-year-old Savanna, destroying my hope for a magical Christmas.

At least she didn't guess that the snow was fake, too. There's nothing quite as lovely as snow spat from a machine. The real stuff is far too slushy, quickly turning from crisp white to grey-brown slurry. It makes you cold and wet, and puts small children in a bad mood. But fake snow is fabulous; you oooh and aaah, then the machine is switched off before the wonder begins to turn into whinging and the fingers freeze.

We were eating at the Petersham, in Richmond, Surrey Petersham Hotel, one of those old-fashioned, sensible hotels that does for any and every age at a very reasonable price. Our table, as almost every other, had three generations sitting around it. Storme, 12, and her friend Laura turned the fish knives over and over, speculating their strange purpose, while granny approved of the white linen table cloths.

The Petersham isn't the only place guaranteeing to defy global warming. The Thames may not freeze over as it did in Tudor times, but just up the river at Hampton Court Palace there's an ice rink for skating Hampton Court Ice Rink.

A while back I wrote about children preferring paddling pools to rock pools, which incensed some of you who believe nature knows best. But as far as I'm concerned, let it snow - as long as it's fake.