Christmas

When I was a kid, like most other kids, I believed in Santa Claus. At such a young age you have this blindingly unquestioning faith that everything your parents tell you is the absolute truth – which is why religious parents are such dangerous animals – and some call it innocence. Others, naivety. Personally, though, if you’re going to tell me a big fat man in a red suit squidged down the chimney in the middle of the night to give me all the presents I asked for, as long as I get the goods I’m not gonna complain. A fat man, you say, mommy? Rides a magic sledge with a frickin’ reindeer’s nose to light the way? And he’s given me that brand new bike I asked for? It all makes perfect sense!

When you get older Christmas is a more dismal affair. There isn’t a magic jolly fat man to give me bicycles anymore; just a list of people I have to give presents to or I’ll look like a miser, or worse, poor.

I don’t remember the exact moment Santa Claus ceased to exist to me. It wasn’t a schoolyard incident where a big boy laughed at me for believing in him, and it wasn’t because I was a young Sherlock who unravelled the mystery with some good old fashioned detective work. It was around the time we moved house and went from having a coal fire to electric heaters, losing a chimney in the process. Come Christmas it occurred to me that Santa had no traditional point of access to our house – how was he to give me my present?

“Oh, that’s okay, he can use the front door,” said my Dad and it all sort of fell apart after that. If Santa could use doors like normal people then why the merry fig was he coming down the chimney all the time? It boggled the mind. I grew suspicious. Santa died.