A Christmas Message

I believe in Father Christmas. 


Absurd? Ludicrous? Feebleminded? No, I’m not writing from a pre-school playgroup, nor some slow learner refuge; no, I have never seen him, his reindeer nor any of his workers; no, I have no evidence of his existence beyond the sleepy childhood memory of teethmarks in a homemade mince pie (which basic forensic investigation might identify as the imprint of my own father’s dentures);  I have no explanation for how he and his legion of elves deal with the administration of their formidable annual correspondence in the face-tearing cold of the North Pole, managing almost unfailingly to produce and deliver the requested gifts to several billion of his followers with just a sleigh and a 24 hour window of opportunity (accessing chimneyless, securely alarmed properties without trace); I just believe.


I am only too well aware of the snarling and the smug, the cynics who’ve rejected his love and his very existence. You ‘believe’?, they sneer, as if the question is enough in itself, hardly bothering to list their ‘overwhelming’ banks of evidence. Don’t be such an idiot. Don’t be such a child. Grow up. My belief, however, is relatively modest. Santa is just doing a good job well. He’s a model professional. I’m not claiming he can part the seas, walk on water, rise from the dead or has ever had any divine laws dictated to him by archangels. That would be insane.


Yes, he has given in to commercial pressure over the years, swopping pagan green for Coca Cola red, inspiring some of the tackiest store sideshows, pedophile fantasies and the worst ‘family’ movies ever made; sponsorship, however, is the lifeblood of any growing business (and every charity is a business); how else could he satisfy his expanding numbers? It is hardly his fault if sometimes it’s difficult to police the franchise.


In any case, who have his followers ever harmed? These are a priori innocents schooled in his disciplined teaching. Although no disciplinarian, his solitary lesson in deferred gratification, rewarding only good behaviour (assessed through an annual log of individual thought and action) provides restraint and self control in a grasping, chaotic world. His people are, therefore, good people; they don’t preach, they convert by example not belligerence. There are no slavish rituals, no extreme ceremonies: they neither starve themselves for weeks nor have any desire to consume his (rather bloated) body to be ‘one with him’. They’re not primitive savages. There is no history of abuse, no crusades, no jihad, no ‘justified’ massacres of those cynical unbelievers; just the warmth of human kindness, joy and celebration.


So, call me what you like, I believe in Father Christmas. Where’s the harm in that?

​DG