Every Christmas holiday was the same… 

We would watch all the Christmas films on TV: The Santa Claus, Miracle on 34th street, Home Alone, Jingle All the Way. We would put up the decorations, Christmas tree, lights, tinsel and prepare for that momentous day!! The 25th of December, when Father Christmas would come down the chimney into our house and unload a stocking full of presents for me, my brother and sister. 

“Who really was this Father Christmas character?”, I wanted to know, “and how did he deliver presents to children across the world in just one night?” These questions and many more I would ask my Mum and Dad on many occasions, though the films filled me in with the answers too.

My parents would always answer with the utmost sincerity “it was all a kind of magic…”

“How does Father Christmas fit down the chimney when he’s so fat? And how does he get into the peoples houses who don’t have a chimney?” I might ask.

“Well, he uses his magic to make the chimney wider so he can come down it, and for houses without chimneys he uses magic to make a chimney.” 

I couldn’t argue with that. 

It wasn’t just my parents either because what they were telling me seemed to fit the story I was getting from everyone else: school, teachers, people in town, the Christmas movies, the Christmas songs, everyone I knew and everything around me spoke this same story. 

Of course I was also told the story of Jesus growing up, but that wasn’t half as interesting as this Father Christmas fellow.

Every Christmas Eve my parents would leave carrots out for the reindeer and a mince pie and sherry for the jolly Father Christmas. In the morning of Christmas Day, I would wake up, go downstairs, open the shut doors where there was a sign written ‘Keep Out! Father Christmas at Work’, and Lo and Behold, there were 3 stockings sat on the sofa filled with presents. 

The mince pie and carrots were eaten leaving just crumbs and bits leftover, and the sherry glass was empty. 

That was the level of detail and conviction from my parents that I was dealing with!!

My parents would go so far as to tell me “If you don’t believe in him, then he won’t come!”

They were extremely good at the upkeep of this ‘magic story’ never giving in to questioning and like ninjas they managed to buy, wrap and deliver the presents without a trace of their involvement. 

On one particular Christmas (I only found this out many years later) my Dad had driven my Mum, brother and sister to my Granny’s house to spend a few days with her over Christmas. It wasn’t so often that we went to my Granny’s house because Granny, for some reason or other, lived in the middle of nowhere. 

The journey took 2 and a half hours, the latter half taking us down windy, country back-roads. After driving all the way there, it wasn’t until my Mum and Dad were unpacking the stuff from the car into the house when it suddenly dawned on them….

They’d left all our Christmas presents at home! 

As it was Christmas Eve when we arrived, Father Christmas was due to be upon us the very next day and my Dad had a choice to make:

Drive all the way back home then drive the whole return journey to Granny’s with the presents, OR, come up with a good enough excuse, explaining to us naive children that for some reason, Father Christmas was going to be late this year.

There was also an option 3 but I’m 100% sure this wasn’t an option for him. That being: 

“Santa isn’t real, your Mum and I buy the presents for you and unfortunately, I just forgot to bring them…”

A tough position to be in, I can appreciate that, but also I would just say, this was the ‘game’ they had decided to play. So the sun on Christmas day had risen, the 3 of us children tumbled down the stairs and burst into the sitting room with thrills of expectation…

and there, on the sofa, were 3 big stockings, filled with presents.