Rate your Santa

Dear Father Christmas

It isn't often that I write letters of complaint - and perhaps my thirty-something years should have made me world-weary enough to let this pass - but I can't help thinking that it's not too late. With a few pointers there is still time before Christmas to keep the magic alive for hundreds of other girls and boys.

You might think that I'm not your target audience, but as one who paid your £5.50 entrance fee on Tuesday you would be wrong. I don't expect you to be RADA trained, just convincing enough so that a three year old can't see right through you.

It has to be said that you've got a lot going for you – the willing suspension of disbelief has already been created. Most performers don't have the benefit of such a receptive audience, but unfortunately this comes with a certain level of expectation. I've spent a long time building you up, and you've got a great back story, lots of magic powers (always sells), a warm and jolly persona and a fine intellect to match. You can break and enter into any house without chimney, and best of all, you are the image of selfless and bountiful giving. What I'm trying to say is that you're trading on an elaborate cultural lie and your job is to enhance it. The last thing we want is to tell our children the truth, or who can say where it will end?

Allow me to enter into specifics:

1. Your 'grotto' was frankly grotty and your 'elf' was entirely without any elfin features (a hat and rosy cheeks really would make all the difference. The diet can wait until January).

2. £5.50 for a five minute interview and a tube of bubbles did not leave me feeling bountiful and full of festive cheer.

3. I didn’t see a list of your convictions pinned up outside, so you really didn't need to discuss your CRB checks with us at such length, nor launch a tirade on taxi drivers the world over who do not require such paperwork. The Impster was totally befuddled, but mercifully on this occasion was sufficiently distracted not to request her customary chapter and verse explanation.

4. Your parting shot should not be 'Goodbye! If you liked it, Merry Christmas, and if not you can see Santa at Debenhams.'

5. Don't ask a three year old the kind of question that would fox an adult. They are probably feeling rather shy and in awe of you (particularly in light of your passionate feelings regarding the necessary police checks) so starting a conversation with 'Now how many reindeer do I have?' won't put anyone at their ease.

6. I know that in this era of globalisation it’s probably harder to get your story straight, but you really should decide on where you live and stick to it: is it the North Pole, Greenland or Lapland? It doesn't help to give the impression of being hazy about geography when you have to cover the world in a single night.

I don't mean to be picky, but it is clear that you are not a man who enjoys his work. Perhaps you dislike children? Or consider parental expectations to be wildly excessive these days?

Anyway, you can take heart from the fact that the Impster still thinks you were 'better than the Father Christmas with the bell' who was outside the cathedral last week. I, too, was unconvinced by the cut of his jib. There is something altogether wrong about a skinny Father Christmas (though that is one accusation I would not lay at your door).

Well, I wish you the very best of luck for the remaining festive season, and let us sincerely hope you find more satisfying employment in the New Year. Should you wish to persevere with this career path, please don’t hesitate to contact me. I am now actively engaged in launching The Father Christmas Consultancy in time for next Christmas.

All best wishes


This Father Christmas was found in his Ice Cave at the Winchester Cathedral Christmas Market. If you've had an encounter with a good, bad or indifferent Father Christmas this year then please leave a comment about it.

By the way, as long as you’re not too fussy about where your letter ends up, little people can write to Santa Claus, Reindeer Land, SAN TA1 and the Royal Mail will try their best to deliver it in a timely fashion. (Just for the record, the real Father Christmas lives in the mountains of Korvatunturi in the Finnish province of Lapland but then you have to rely on the chimney method of delivery which is somewhat fraught with hazards.)

Also, don’t forget you can track his movements around the world on Christmas Eve here (they need Disney or Nintendo on the case with their animation but it’s clever enough to impress a three year old).

Merry Christmas one and all!

Which Disney Princess Are You?

Every time we want the Impster to do something she finds disagreeable (such as putting on her shoes) she gets all huffy and shouts: 'I'm sixteen years old, I'm not a child anymore!' She's actually a three year old with an overactive imagination and a Disney addiction. This line comes straight from The Little Mermaid and she is currently styling herself in the leading role, drawn here:


It has some advantages, being a useful way of keeping strangers at arm's length by lying about her name, and also a way of getting her to put her shoes on if you only remember to address her correctly.

But on balance the advantages are outweighed by the disadvantages, as we discovered on holiday last week when she told the man at passport control, 'my name is Ariel'. Then later (much later as it turned out) when we were characteristically lost in search of our destination, a little voice from the back of the car chirps merrily away on a pretend phone call: 'hi Sebastian, it’s Ariel. We are very lost. [Pause for response.] Well. Well, we are in the middle of the dark with French words all around us. [Pause.] No, we don't know where we are going.'

When we did finally arrive at the gite it took her about four and a half minutes to sniff out a whole cupboard of bloody Disney films, which goes to prove yet again that there is no such thing as a holiday with toddlers. As if to reinforce the theme, what should be in her a bedroom but a full-scale underwater sea mural, which (along with the Little Mermaid) I hold responsible for her terrifying insistence on only swimming underwater in the pool. Most embarrasingly of all, she has a bevy of imaginary mermaid friends and spent the week VERY clearly telling anyone who would listen: ‘I’m not interested in lady love.’ That surely can’t be more Disney scripting can it?

Anyway, in the style of Just Seventeen , if the Impster is Ariel, which Disney Princess are you?

1. You meet the man of your dreams. Are you likely to:
a) have met him once upon a dream
b) dance all night with him but have no idea of his name in the morning
c) be grateful he's over 4ft tall
d) admire his mode of transport
e) think he's a bit ugly but hey, looks aren't everything
f) find yourself speechless

2. You're currently seeking professional help to overcome your:
a) narcolepsy
b) lack of assertiveness
c) claustrophobia
d) anger management issues
e) terrible eyesight
f) laryngitis

3. Your family set up is:
a) muddled. You were adopted by three eccentric old women, and didn't discover your true identity until you were 16
b) absent father, abusive stepmother and two hideous stepsisters
c) both parents deceased, pathological stepmother
d) absent mother, doting father
e) absent mother, hair-brained and grossly incompetent father
f) absent mother, tyrannical father

4. Your best friend is:
a) an owl, a squirrel and a rabbit
b) a family of mice
c) an assortment of woodland creatures with domestic prowess
d) a tiger
e) a teapot
f) a stripy fish and a lobster

5. On your sixteenth birthday you are given:
a) a spinning wheel
b) a glass slipper
c) a poisoned apple
d) a magic carpet ride
e) a rose
f) a pair of legs

Congratulations! You can now live happily ever after. If you have answered mostly:

A's, then you are Sleeping Beauty. With three good fairies and a heroic prince to look out for you, you can expect lasting happiness (provided that your husband isn't sent down for murder).

B's, then you are Cinderella. For true happiness, just do yourself a favour and get a cleaner.

C's, then you are Snow White. One day your prince will come, but you'll have to work your way through seven unsuitable men first.

D's, then you are Jasmine from Aladdin (coloured in with much enthusiasm below). Watch out that class differences don't start to ruin your marriage (or that your tiger doesn't eat his monkey).



E's, then you are Belle from Beauty and the Beast. Ah, c'est bon. He may not be a beast any longer, but you're still left with a frog.

F's, then you are Ariel from The Little Mermaid. Consider investing in an outdoor swimming pool to make family visits easier.

My little superman

You’ll forgive the lack of recent post perhaps if I explain that I’ve been giving birth and things recently.

At precisely midday on New Year’s Day, my little one whooshed into the world, arm outstretched over his head like Superman. Midday, 01.01.10: a very tidy birthday and no doubt one that portends something or other. According to my discharge notes, the birth took 2 hours 24 minutes, though at best this must be a good guess, for he was born on the antenatal ward with a midwife turning up only just in time to catch him.

After all the hooha about my so-called 'high risk' pregnancy and no less than 18 mornings spent attached to a grotty old machine being monitored, the hospital lost my medical notes and left me totally unsupervised and unmonitored for the whole labour. The most surprising part is that having insisted on having him out, and inducing the whole process by breaking my waters, the possibility that I might, in fact, have a baby pretty soon apparently didn’t occur. So ladies, the moral of the story is do not give birth on a bank holiday if you want some moral (or rather medical) support.

After the birth I hemorrhaged, and to be fair, they very competently stopped me bleeding to death. Which is why I can type with such speed and vigour now.

Since I have become a mother of two, something peculiar has happened. For the first time, I feel as if I’m a proper mother. If your first child is a kind of practice run, in which you discover with distressing suddenness that you know absolutely nothing about babies, cannot control anything and have alarmingly neurotic tendencies, then in comparison, your second child makes you feel almost competent and possibly even fit to call yourself a parent. This is the wonderful thing about second children. They seem easy peasy and really quite a treat.

What is not so easy is the business of simultaneously looking after the toddler as well. The Impster, who permanently inhabits some sort of ‘second life’ these days, refers to her younger sibling as ‘Sizzles’, the dog from Charlie and Lola. Naturally, she has assumed the role of Lola (in case you’re not a seasoned CBeebies viewer, Lola is an infuriatingly chippy little brat). Unfortunately, this means that Sizzles is regularly patted, sometimes with startling enthusiasm, and must on no account share a bath with her ‘because I’m scared he’ll poo on me’ (which is fair enough and pretty well reasoned). She frequently insists that I ‘take him off the breast’, particularly when I am instructed to ‘watch the telly’ (quite literally – it is not turned on, because the Impster likes to make believe her own programmes and talk you through the action). On the whole she is indifferent to his wellbeing, but has been the happy recipient of numerous ‘big sister’ gifts.

Well, even Superman can’t be entirely super. To be frank, he is somewhat needy and his current wails suggest not wholly appreciative of this blog, so I must away.

Would the real baby Jesus please step forward?

Let's face it, you have to be a particularly abhorrent two year old not to be adorable. Especially if you spend most of the day immersed in a pretend (and much more satisfactory) world. This week I’ve been reminded that things are not always what they seem, and that sometimes this is a decidedly good thing.

I've been reprimanded for stepping on the Impster's imaginary dogs, not hearing her imaginary cats meowing, and accidentally washing up a chopping board with her imaginary olive pesto ('and now,' she hollers outraged, 'I have to start all over again!' Oops). To get her into the bath it is necessary to make believe picnics and train rides, and to get her out again, tents and camels; to get into pyjamas, ball dresses and glass slippers, and to bed a hastily improvised story on a subject of her choosing. I have been allocated the unflattering roles of Ugly Sister and Big Ears, but happily have also been permitted to marry a prince and eat strawberry tart, which seems like a fair enough trade.

It turns out that Christmas time has been specially designed for two year olds. On Christmas Eve I took the Impster to the children's service at the cathedral, dressed as an angel (any occasion which calls for the wearing of fairy wings in public goes down very well with the both of us). Just a few minutes before the service I hastily bastardised her white bridesmaid dress, fashioned a tinsel halo, and accidentally stabbed her with the needle a few times in a fervent attempt to attach the wings. Ta-da! - one angelic child.

But when we arrive, things get kind of complicated. 'Where's the Angel Gabriel?' she asks. To which I point out all the other angelically-attired children. 'No, the Angel Gabriel'. Oh, the real one. I see. 'Well, he's probably in the sky somewhere at the moment. He only pops down occasionally when someone really needs his help.' She ignores this unsatisfactory response and provides her own: 'He's upstairs with the baby Jesus I 'spect.' I nod sagely.

Ditto the wise men, ditto Mary, ditto the shepherds. Yes yes, she can see the children dressed up (durr Mummy!) but when are the real ones going to turn up? 'I can see the stable,' she says, looking up at the wooden screen in front of the choir. And as a baby starts crying mid-carol, she turns to me and says, 'That's the baby Jesus going waa waa waa I s'pose.'

The service, heaving with several hundred barely-continent toddlers does not last long, and there is a rush for the doors. But not for us. The Impster is not leaving until she has located 'the real baby Jesus'.

My explanation of how he lived a rather long time ago and isn't a baby any longer and how we are just remembering the story, suddenly seems fraudulent. You see, only the day before we have taken her on a steam train and she has met 'the real Father Christmas' who has given her presents and everything. Just like the story.

Now, if a two year old indulges in pretend it is a beautiful and charming thing. But somewhere along the line, pretending becomes dishonest and wrong, and we despise grown ups with any hint of 'pretence' about them. That’s why some very dedicated Christians actually refuse to let their children believe in Father Christmas. But without him, surely childhood is a bit, well, serious. If we stoke our imagination when it's young, let it run riot, fuel the furnace with all sorts of fantastical nonsense and whimsy and amusement, then just maybe we are expanding our capacity for belief; to believe in whatever we finally decide is worthwhile believing in.

So right now, as well as being ceaselessly entertained, I'm utterly evangelical about indulging in as much Christmas magic as you can conjure. I will never stop believing in Father Christmas. And if you've spent the week playing charades and feeling all bah humbug, do me a favour and just pretend.