IN the darkened south east corner of George Square the baby Jesus lies lonely and forgotten.

Once, his crib – surrounded by all the familiar nativity characters – was the central feature of the Glasgow Christmas experience, irrespective of whether or not you believed in his divinity. As a child, you were taken here to behold the life-size wooden figures. The season didn’t really kick off until you had checked in on them all under George Square’s duvet of Christmas lights.

Now, he and Mary and Joseph; the cows and the angels and the shepherds, are a sideshow to George Square’s new Holy Family: the ice rink; the helter-skelter; Santa’s flying balloons and a snow globe. Frank Sinatra and that duet from Elf (Baby It’s Cold Outside) are struggling to be heard above the sweaty drone of a dozen electronic generators. For the Child Born to be King there’s no room in the din.

Still though, there is something joyful and persistently Glaswegian about George Square at this time of the year. Approaching from North Hanover Street where it meets Cathedral Street the square is lit up by that big wheel decked with lights and the glow from dozens of wooden booths. It’s like happening upon a little clachan which rises up suddenly once a year like a Christmas Brigadoon.

On this midweek night it thrums with families wandering up and down avenues bordered by stalls peddling the new Scottish festive cuisine: German sausages of every possible classification, including the lesser-known currywurst. Quite clearly, some marketing collective has agreed a long-term contract for the importation of Teutonic bangers at this time of year.

Beside the helter-skelter, a diminutive lady of the Glasgow battleship class is inviting people to participate in what looks like an electronic tombola. She appears to have cut her teeth in the Barras, the mother and father of all al fresco markets. “Get yourselves up here for a wee heat and take a turn,” she beseeches us. “I’ve been talking to myself all night.”

Further along is the ice-skating rink. This is an optimistic and courageous venture at any time of the year in the heart of Glasgow, but more so at Christmas. Fortified by swally and good cheer the chance to career around a sheet of ice in blades becomes curiously beguiling to sparkled Glaswegians. Tonight it looks more Orvill and Mr Bean than Torvill and Dean.

There is, as the millennials say, a good vibe. The prices are decent and children are still mesmerised by the lights and the spirit. There’s a multi-cultural dynamic and a safe atmosphere. Even better, George Square looks brilliant in this raiment.

This space has lately been neglected in recent years, a threadbare, careworn place which once represented Glasgow’s civic pride. Several re-designs have been mooted, all of them extravagant and using words such as ‘re-modelling’. The rest of us just want it to be restored to something clean and simple: ample green spaces; nice trees, maybe some flowers. But under this festive canopy it shimmies and twinkles.

Edinburgh’s Christmas market experience has in-built advantages that Glasgow can’t match. It sprawls out along the full length of Princes Gardens and behind it sits the castle and the architectural splendour of the Old Town. One of the National Galleries of Scotland is down there above the railway line and the gardens themselves look gorgeous at any time of the year.

Perhaps this is why some of the city residents have been withering about the presence of such a populist – and therefore rude – attraction near adjacent to the centre of its UNESCO World Heritage architectural treasures.

Glasgow’s Christmas market is saddled with the new frontage of Queen Street Station, a poor and uninspiring replacement for its old and rather wonderful art deco design. Beside it is the Millennium Hotel, another superb building lately ruined by a glass verandah running along its entire length. Ironically, this hotel played host to one of the most important meetings of the Second World War in the cold winter of 1941, and not long after Christmas.

This was when Winston Churchill hosted John Hopkins, President Roosevelt’s special envoy, at a room in the then North British Hotel. The historian, Martin Gilbert records that Hopkins was here to assess Europe’s readiness for war “in order to put himself in closest relation with things here. He will soon return to report to his famous chief the impressions he has gathered in our islands.”

During the dinner, Hopkins, whose mother was a God-fearing Scot, quoted from the Bible. ‘Whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God … Even to the end.”

It moved Churchill to tears for he knew then that America would enter the war and turn the tides of future generations. Like so much of Glasgow’s city centre heritage it remains neglected.

Not so in Edinburgh. Despite the objections of the locals its Christmas market continues to thrive, but it might well exist on a different planet to Glasgow’s. This is a designer market: a sort of Harvey Nick’s on the Green. You could furnish your home here, or stock up for your next skiing holiday.

Here, you’ll find fur jackets and designer bow ties. There’s jewellery, large decorative maps for 90 quid a pop; lambswool tartan scarves. There’s cashmere and handbags and Chinese bowls and lanterns. I was half expecting a home showroom to appear or at least an Audi dealership.

Yet, neither is it immune from the appeal of those ubiquitous big German sausages: Frankfurters and the Wurst twins, Brat and Bock. Thon currywursts have insinuated themselves into this place too.

Edinburgh’s big wheel is as you might expect it too. The cabins (for that is what they are) come fully encased in glass and you half expect them to provide tartan blankets and a nip of whisky. At Edinburgh housing market rates these wee vestibules would probably fetch a price tag approaching six figures. In Glasgow they might provide bijou, night-time shelters.

A noticeably more affluent clientele is present too, strolling about the way affluent people do: slowly while scanning a spot in the sky in the direction of about 2 'o'clock with their hands clasped behind their backs.

The Helter Skelter is at least one storey taller than the one in Glasgow, yet cheaper. They’re missing a trick with this one. Yet, gloriously, as you enter the gardens from old St Cuthbert’s churchyard, you’re confronted with the Waltzers.

And so you pay your money and take your turn. Immediately, you’re transported back to a more innocent time as a youth with a vulpine grin gives you an extra spin and you begin to regret that currywurst you had on your way in. A few groups of girls, all pink and giggly in the cold, squeal with delight. It’s Christmas time indeed.

The douce citizens of this boutique city really have nothing to worry about. For a few weeks of the year these gardens become a bit more accessible to the outlying Edinburgh communities.

In recent years Edinburgh has chosen to submerge its unique identity in a year-long festival theme park. Christmas is now merely one staging post in a “Winter Festival” that co-exists with the seven (or is it eight?) mini festivals that have grown up around the sprawling International and Fringe events. Very few of these are intended for Edinburgh’s edgier communities. But they can come to this Christmas market and enjoy themselves. Among the designer trinkets and accoutrements, there’s decent, well-priced food and activities that will enchant young families.

Back in Glasgow, the lights dance and the children are mesmerised. Down one of the unlit lanes that form around the city centre several rough sleepers are preparing to face the coldest night of the year. And we’re transported to a darker childhood memory provided by Hans Christian Anderson and his Christmas tale of the Little Match Girl trying to sell matches to unseeing festive revellers.

As she huddles in an alley she lights her own matches and sees visions of everyone else’s Christmas: a bright tree; a roast goose and a warm iron stove. As each match burns out the visions die and so, eventually does she.

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