To make things worse, it was not a myth copied and perpetuated solely by the tabloids; the broadsheets were equally responsible for repeating it, and perhaps did more to legitimise it than the tabloids. The Sunday Times, for instance, used the myth as a question and answer in three quizzes, twice in 1998 and then again in 2000.
Between them, the Times and the Sunday Times have in fact managed to repeat the myth 40 times in total since 1998, an achievement only surpassed by the
Daily Mail, which leads the field with 44 mentions. The Daily Telegraph managed to repeat it 22 times, only slightly behind the Express (26), and a bit further behind the Sun (31). The Daily Mirror only seems to have repeated the myth on four occasions – less than the Guardian, which has repeated it on six occasions, even though it did eventually debunk the myth in several different articles.
The myth was not just repeated, either. It was also gradually distorted to become ever more removed from the original misconception. What started as a myth that one council had rebranded or renamed Christmas became a pluralised, open-ended narrative that "councils" and "authorities" were rebranding or renaming Christmas as "Winterval".