IT is no secret that, as you get older, time passes faster, but if there’s one thing guaranteed to make it pass even quicker, it’s this time of year, writes GRAHAM CARTER.

New Year is obviously a time for looking back on the last 12 months, but it’s mostly about realising those 12 months flew by even more swiftly than they did last year, and suddenly you are another year older.

Is it really a whole year since we were watching those fireworks and wondering what 2016 had in store for us?

And Christmas Day doesn’t help, either.

Most other days melt into one, and even the stand-outs in the calendar, like your birthday and New Year’s Eve, become difficult to separate from each other as the years go by.

If you’ve seen one New Year’s Eve, you’ve seen the lot.

But on Christmas Day it struck me that I now have 50 of them in my memory, and I remember every one.

That’s because they were all different, thanks to what presents I was given, what was number one in the charts, where and with whom we had Christmas dinner, what we watched on the telly and - in more recent times - what we bought our kids.

And 2016’s will be remembered for something else that is guaranteed to make you feel old, which is realising how life turns full circle.

My favourite present this year was one that my son and daughter (and son’s girlfriend) all clubbed together to buy me.

Most people who know me know I have always been a big fan of The Beatles, and my kids are especially aware of it because they have had it drummed into them from an early age - quite literally since I took drumming lessons and pretended I was Ringo Starr.

So they knew I would be thrilled to receive a Lego model of the Yellow Submarine, complete with four special Lego men with the clothes and faces of John, Paul, George and Ringo as they were in 1968 (when I was seven years old).

It’s a fantastic model, as I have been telling everybody who is prepared to listen.

Incidentally, several of them have asked if it came ready made, to which the answer is: “It’s Lego; figure it out.”

Indeed, I spent two or three thoroughly enjoyable hours, putting the 537 bits together.

But here’s something to think about: it doesn’t seem like five minutes since I was buying our kids Lego for Christmas, but now they are buying it for me!

Meanwhile, my daughter bought my wife a couple of animated films on DVD. So (apart from the fact that in their day the films would have been on video instead) Christmas has come full circle for her, too.

At one stage on Christmas morning my wife and I were sitting side-by-side of the sofa, beaming over our new gifts, while our grown-up children pointed out that it was now us, not them, who are the big kids in the family.

And, just to rub it all in, my wife bought me a novelty liquorice set (among other things), just like the ones both of us received from our own parents, half a century ago.

It confirmed that nostalgia and retro and regression to childhood have become the over-riding themes of Christmas in the Carter household.

Scrooge is not the only one who gets visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past. It happens to all of us, only we don’t always realise.

So don’t blink when you put your decorations away in the attic.

Because Christmas will be back as fast as you can say Lego.