we heard footsteps, an exclamation – ‘my, what a lovely mince pie, ho, ho, ho’ and a jangling of sleigh bells, which my mum had contributed to add that important level of verisimilitude. To a 5- or 6-year-old mind, this was irrefutable evidence. It kept us believing for another year, anyway.
R. B.
Father Christmas hasn’t always been a benevolent bringer of presents. We’re told by historian Martin Johnes that Father Christmas was originally ‘an unruly and sometimes even debauched figure who symbolised festive celebrations’, but he merged with the American figure of Santa Claus during the nineteenth century to become a red-coated one-man logistical solutions unit. (Contrary to popular belief, it wasn’t the multinational force of Coca-Cola that imposed a bearded, rotund figure upon unwilling Christians. He was already chubby and dressed in red and white before Coke started promoting him.) By the early to mid twentieth century Santa (or Father Christmas) became the figure that was blueprinted a hundred years earlier in the American poem ‘A Visit from St. Nicholas’ (also known as ‘Twas the Night Before Christmas’), and as the reindeer, sleighs, toys and chimneys of that poem became cemented in our culture, Father Christmas became almost too big a deal. Telling the truth to children was out of the question. So we keep up the pretence for a period that can last for as long as a decade, partly to maintain an element of Christmas magic, partly as a parenting tool to enforce good behaviour by threatening his non-appearance. You better watch out, you better not cry, you better not pout, you better tidy your bedroom.4
Essex, Christmas 1985
One year my parents couldn’t afford enough presents to fill our stockings from Santa, so they added some gifts from friends and family to bulk it up a bit. But they forgot to take the label off one of them, which was a mug, ‘With love from Ian’. I thought Santa had chosen me, of all the world’s children, to reveal his real name to, and was beside myself with excitement. I remember returning to school and telling everyone, but feigning nonchalance. ‘What? Yeah, his name’s Ian. He told me.’ What an idiot.
R. M.
In an ideal world, kids come to terms with Father Christmas not being real over a number of years, via a slow awakening process. They quietly realise that the mileage that he’s caning with Rudolf and friends over the course of a night doesn’t add up, and the fact that he’s in multiple places simultaneously doesn’t make sense, particularly as he seems to be a lot fatter in Debenhams than he was at the town hall. The moment where kids realise that it’s not Santa filling their stockings should represent a kind of blessed relief because they were starting to question their own sanity. This, however, is not always the case.
Newport, Christmas 1985
On Christmas morning the tradition was that we’d wake up and feel at the end of the bed for the stocking, which was filled with small presents and maybe a tangerine or a mini Mars bar in the toe. But one year we woke up and the stockings weren’t there. I would have been nine. My brother and my sister and I all congregated in one bedroom, saying, ‘Oh my god, I’ve not had a stocking, have you had a stocking?’ Then we looked in our parents’ bedroom, and they weren’t there. This was really weird.
It was still dark. We ran downstairs, and the lounge door was shut, and I remember us saying, ‘Oh god, what if Santa is still in there? Do we go in?’ My brother pushed the door open and we saw that the light was on. We peered round the door, and on the sofa were my parents, asleep, with empty wine bottles around them, halfway through doing the stockings, and my dad with his hand inside one of them. And I swear, because I believed in Santa so much, my first thought was, ‘Mum and Dad are stealing our presents!’ We woke them up and they were horrified. My mum was indignant (‘What are you doing down here?’) but my dad was really upset. He knew that he’d ruined Christmas. There was some weak attempt at explaining it away, but that was the end of believing in Father Christmas. At that point, we knew.
A. M.
The mystery of who brings us our presents is recreated in the workplace with Secret Santa, an annual tradition marked by the high-stress drawing of lots, in which everyone hopes they don’t get their boss. Secret Santa adds layers of unnecessary complexity to office politics that may already be fraught: cheap novelty gifts can be deemed insulting, ones that cost more than the specified £5 or £10 can be seen as pathetic attempts to curry favour, and inappropriate ones such as edible knickers or plastic handcuffs can end with a summoning to the HR department for having violated the terms of employment.
Secret Santa pros will manage to come up with three or four decent gifts from the 99p section of eBay, but mischief-makers will get the biggest present they can find that’s within the spending limit, and come in early in order to haul 50kg of building sand out of their car and into the workplace under cover of darkness. If Secret Santa feels too much like hard work, the worldwide web now hosts a number of online Secret Santa tools which suck out any joy from the process, with questionnaires and links to products on Amazon at that particular price point.5 Grim.
Hertfordshire, Christmas 2011
In my first proper job I decided to ‘bring the office together’ with a Secret Santa because it had always worked brilliantly with my friends. I remember that I had to really persuade one particular guy to join in, and was surprised when he turned up the next day with a wrapped gift. This turned out to be a box of Matchmakers and a Chas & Dave CD. When the recipient opened it, she ran into the stationery cupboard and started crying. Apparently Chas & Dave provoked some deep, distressing memory associated with her father.
N.H.
Secret Santa may result in some delicate situations as colleagues compare their respective gifts, but things are no less intense in the family home. The ceremony of gift giving is like a strange one-act play staged in the living room, where moments of genuine pleasure are broken up by Oscar-worthy feigned delight, artificial surprise, awkward silences, suppressed fury and insincere thank yous. It’s astounding, really. If everyone was required by law to react honestly to Christmas gifts as they unwrapped them, we’d see a nationwide break-up of the family unit as we know it, and a lot of very long walks being taken on Christmas afternoon.
This very loaded, intense period of time generally begins at some ungodly hour on Christmas morning if you have small children, slowly moves to later in the day as those children get older, and then zings back to 6 a.m. as those children have their own small children. If your family happens to observe the traditions of mainland Europe, you might open your presents on Christmas Eve – but that’s ridiculous, as it leaves you with nothing to do on Christmas Day except wish that you hadn’t already opened your presents. My own family manage to work up some enthusiasm for unwrapping by late morning. We proceed painstakingly around the room, sizing up the presents, tapping, shaking, rattling, then unwrapping a present each in turn, with my dad saying, ‘Ooh, what have you got there?’ in a strangely high-pitched voice that he only ever uses at Christmas (and the question is ridiculous because everyone knows what everyone is getting as we specifically asked for this stuff a month earlier). We don’t have that many presents, but it takes ages. It really stretches out, like a fifth set tiebreak at Wimbledon and just as exhausting.
Bath, Christmas 2006
My dad’s brother’s wife, who I affectionately term Aunt Hag, has always had it in for me. I have a younger brother she adores, and she loves my mum and dad, but she’s never liked me, and this has always been reflected in the presents she gets me. My parents receive wonderful gifts from her, but mine push the boundaries of the word ‘gift’. I got congealed nail varnish from her one year. When I was about 5 years old I remember getting a yellow
