Ho, ho, ho...

Santa Claus dropped into Kensington School on Friday, as he does on the last day of every Christmas term, with the traditional red coat, a bell to announce his arrival, and a sackful of sweets for all the youngest children. I’m not sure how he got on in Nursery and Reception, although I think he did well – some years the youngest children burst out crying at the sight of him – but in Year 1 and 2, with the 5 and 6-year-olds, things went o.k. 

 Some classes make it easy for Santa : they’re scaffolding a class letter to Father Christmas or the Three Kings when he walks in, so he can read what the children want for Christmas straight off the board. He always asks the class teacher if the children have been good, and asks the children to sing him a carol or a Christmas song – Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer always makes him happy ( he knows the words for that one ), although the one Year 1 sang this year about vampires sucking blood on Halloween got extra marks for originality. Rudolph is always very popular, so he gets the chance to explain how Rudolph is sitting up on the flat roof, looking after the sleigh, enjoying a good merienda of a carrot with ice cream.

In Year 2, Santa sometimes runs up against the sceptics : children who think he’s Mr. Williams  ( too tall !  ) or Mr. Pérez ( really ? With a British accent ? ) dressed up.

This year Santa mistimed his escape ( beard-related crisis, I hear ), was faced with having to cross a playground full of  hysterical five-year-olds, and after an intense negotiation to stop them pulling his coat off or his trousers down, had to beat an undignified retreat to the Key Stage One Staff Room for half an hour until the coast was clear. Apparently, with the under-fives, One Direction simply can't compete. It's Santamania all the way down there.

I always enjoy the day Santa comes to school. As an adult, I know he’s just a story, invented by some American bloke out of old German and Norse folktales, since taken and used to sell a million pieces of crap that nobody seriously wants or needs; but once a year at least, he’s a story who gets up and walks, at least for the youngest children. I’m never in any doubt that when they look at Santa, for them, he’s as real as their teacher.

And what a story it is : once a year, on that one special night, there’s someone who travels  through the darkness across the entire world, looking after every child in every part of every country, wealthy or poor, bringing them a gift that will make them happy for a while : and asking for nothing in return.  Wouldn’t you want to believe in something like that ?

Reading it back, perhaps I shouldn’t have written “he’s just a story”; after all, humans are the animals who tell stories. The stories we tell are the imaginative spaces we share, and which enable us to communicate with one another, to accept and acknowledge the human experiences we share, rather than as so often the things which divide us; and the stories we tell ourselves about our own lives make up our identities, and shape the people we become. In that context, there are worse stories to share than Santa.

                                                                       Shared Santa.

Perhaps the best Santa Claus story I know is a story about the story; Santa doesn't put in an appearance, which is kind of the point.  “To Everything There is a Season” was written in the 1970s by the Canadian writer Alastair Macleod, and published in his collection The Lost Salt Gift of Blood. He writes in the persona of an eleven-year-old boy growing up on a farm in rural Nova Scotia, I guess in the 1940s, excited about the approaching Christmas season, worried about his father’s failing health, waiting with anticipation for the return of his older brother who is working halfway across Canada on the Great Lakes, the story seen and narrated from  the child’s side of adulthood.

“I am troubled myself about the nature of Santa Claus and I am trying to hang onto him in any way that I can. It is true that at my age I no longer really believe in him; yet I have hoped in his possibilities as fiercely as I can, much in the same way, I think, that the drowning man waves desperately to the lights of the passing ship on the high sea’s darkness. For without him, as without the man’s ship, it seems our fragile lives would be so much more desperate.”

His brother Neil arrives back just in time for Christmas, with boxes and bag full of “clothes”s, and is clearly shocked by the state of his father’s health; the family’s Christmas routines and rituals run on as every year, until it’s time to go to bed on Christmas Eve.

“After we have stabled the horse we talk with our parents and eat the meal our mother has prepared. And then I am sleepy and it is time for the younger children to be in bed. But tonight my father says to me, “We would like you to stay up with us a while,” and so I stay quietly with the older members of my family.

When all is silent upstairs, Neil brings in the cartons that contain his “clothes” and begins to open them. He unties the intricate knots quickly, their whorls faling away beneath his agile fingers. The boxes are filled with gifts neatly wrapped and bearing tags. The ones for my younger brothers say “from Santa Claus” but mine are not among them anymore, as I know with certainty they never will be again. Yet I am not so much surprised as touched by a pang of loss at being here on the adult side of the world. It is as if I have suddenly moved into another room and heard a door click lastingly behind me. I am jabbed by my own small wound.

But then I look at those before me. I look at my parents drawn together before the Christmas tree. My mother has her hand upon my father’s shoulder and he is holding his ever-present handkerchief. I look at my sisters who have crossed this threshold ahead of me and now each day journey further from the lives they knew as girls. I look at my magic older brother who has come to us this Christmas from half a continent away, bringing everything he has and is. All of them are captured in the tableau of  their care.

“Every man moves on,” says my father quietly, and I think he speaks of Santa Claus, “but there is no need to grieve. He leaves good things behind.”

Wherever you are, have a peaceful and restful Christmas : here's to further shared endeavours in the New Year,

( And if you want a Santa Claus reboot, here’s a Christmas card from Neil Gaiman.  : )   )