Bad Santa

I’ll probably go to Hell for this but I have to come clean and admit my very real dislike of shopping mall Santas. They have no air of mystery, no magic – they just take parent’s money, give the kid’s a cheap present and spit them out onto the street again.
I was thinking along these lines as I waited for the husband beside Santa’s grotto in a shopping centre last week. The queue, some 40-people deep, was made up mostly of stressed, grumpy parents who couldn’t believe the price of a visit and kids who didn’t really believe the dude was the real Santa.
“Is Santa from Creggan mammy? I thought he was from the North Pole. Do they speak in Derry accents over about the North Pole?”
As I stood there I got all cynical thinking this Christmas lark can get a bit fake if you let it. From the rubbish shopping mall Santas to the notion that one must spend a fortune to have the truly picture perfect festive season – all woolly jumpers, warm fires and smiley faces.
Perhaps it’s because I’m older and jaded by the ever-lengthening holiday season, the Christmas music beginning on Halloween, the in-store decorations getting dusty even before November’s out, all presided over by the retail juggernaut. Is it wrong to want the real magic of Christmas, the one that doesn’t cost anything?
And I wondered if the real Santa, as in the real one who doesn’t charge you £12.50 for a three second conversation, ever gets a bit cheesed off with the whole shenanigans. I wondered if he has ever been tempted to fire off a few cheeky replies to those millions of Santa letters he gets.

Dear Santa,
I left milk and cookies for you under the tree, and I left carrots for your reindeer outside the backdoor.
Love, Aoife

Dear Aoife,
I am severely lactose intolerant. Milk gives me debilitating cramps and the reindeers really hate carrots, as in like totally HATE them. Whoever started this milk, cookie and carrot rumour needs a good slap. You wanna make me happy? Forget the milk; leave me a tall glass of red wine, one of Dad’s big cigars and some Toblerone for the reindeers.
Thanks!
Santa

Dear Santa,
Do you see us when we're sleeping, do you really know when we're awake, like in the song?
Love, Jessica

Dear Jessica,
You are really that gullible, kid? Good luck in whatever you do in life, I'm skipping your house.
Best
Santa

Dear Santa,
I really, really want a puppy this year. Please, please, please, PLEASE, PLEASE, could I have one?
Danny

Hey Danny,
That whiny begging stuff may work OK with your folks, but it doesn't fly up here, right? You're getting a stupid Christmas tree jumper and Simpson’s socks...again.
Santa

I think I need a large dose of Christmas spirit or indeed a miracle. Perhaps if Santa left me a new Apple MacBook Pro (with all the apps, in silver please) I might be slightly less cynical next year….

Santaphobic no more....

There hasn’t really been much chat about Santa in our house over the last few weeks until the weekend. Then bam! – out come the catalogues. Bam! – foot long lists. Bam! – Santa may put his head between his legs and kiss his ass goodbye because he is either going bankrupt or he’s going to have to organise a huge overdraft facility with the nice people at the bank (Hi there Brid!).
We had PSPs, Ninetento DS’, Lightning McQueen DVD and TV sets, expresso machines, ice-cream makers, wide-screen TVs, vacuum cleaners with personalities and stupid names like Henrietta. I was half way down the list before I realised the kids had been consulting the Curry’s catalogue instead of the usual Argos one. If I hadn’t have rectified the situation Santa’s sleigh would have groaning under the weight of several tons of electrical equipment with smiley faces and a ridiculous amount of pointless white kitchen goods.
I remember the days when our two boys were severely Santaphobic. Every year my comedy shopping mall Santa photographs take pride of place on the mantelpiece alongside the nativity scene. I have several good shots of Daniel’s tonsils, one of Santa trying to flee from a raging Caolan, two or three of the husband and I sitting alongside Santa, smiling pathetically whilst trying to restrain a child and one of Santa holding his face after Caolan clawed his skin while trying to make good an escape over his shoulder and out the window.
The past few years have been a little better. The photos a tad more civilised – no assaults, no screaming, no drama.
They now know that the big man in the red suit really is a good guy. Yes he’s a strange and mysterious bearded man who breaks into our house in the middle of the night. Yes he sneaks around and eats our food but hey, he also leaves some really good stuff.
And this year Caolan, our middle son – the one who loved to run into walls with the wash basket on his head and breaks everything he touches – will actually star as Santa in the school play. This is a big thing for us. Since the child has only been in the school for four months I’m not sure they actually know what they’ve gotten themselves into. I suggest that the front row wear crash helmets and St John’s ambulance are on standby. Also I shall request a few extra fire extinguishers be available, or maybe I might call ahead to the fire station and tell them that the school will probably be on fire at around 10.15am next Wednesday.
After what was probably the worst year in living Breslin family history this Christmas will be a strange one but we’ll make the very best of it for our kids.
All the family will be here. My husband and I will fall out over who makes the best stuffing, my sister and brothers will drink too much home-made mulled wine and have to retire conveniently early before the dishes are done. We’ll all wear stupid party hats and fight over the remote control. The kids will scream, we will shout, but we shall be thankful for our blessings – for our beautiful and wonderful family, the great times we shared with our Dad over the years, and the good times that are still to come for us, for our health and the love we all have for each other.

The week that was...

I’ve just finished what was probably the most difficult and surreal week of my life.
My father was laid to rest after three days which passed in a blur of tea, sandwiches and sympathy. Hundreds of people came to our house, hundreds more called and emailed. It was wonderful to see how much a positive impact my Dad made on so many people’s lives.
It was a week which saw my children introduced to death for the first time. It wasn’t something I had intended to do, but we tried to make the whole process as natural and as normal as possible.
And the kids – mine, my brothers and sister’s kids – were like little rays of sunshine in what were some really dark days.
As we walked towards my parent’s house on the morning of the funeral my boys pointed out a rainbow which seemed to arch perfectly over their home – starting in the front garden and ending in the back. Granda made that, they said.
When I showed them Granda laid out in the wake house I heard Daniel tell his younger brother that the coffin would bring him to heaven. Caolan asked his older, wiser sibling about the logistics and practicalities of how exactly the coffin would fly to heaven his brother informed him that it had been fitted with special rockets.
The night after my father’s funeral the lights in the entire city went out for three hours. As we sat around in my mother’s kitchen talking by candlelight my boys told us the blackout was caused by Granda who may have fused the electrics while he was fixing the central heating in heaven, much like he often did at home.
And my brother’s beautiful newborn son made a guest appearance at the funeral. It was quite moving to see a child starting off on life’s path being part of the final journey of his grandfather. It was quite overwhelming, yet still beautiful, to be a first-hand witness to the juxtaposition of life and death.
And despite the sombre proceedings there were a few lighter moments too. I discovered that Bishop Edward Daly is a huge fan of this very column (I swear I shall never again take the Lord’s name in vain) as is President Mary McAleese, who wrote a beautiful personal letter to my Mum a few days after the funeral after she read about my Dad in this very paper.
While standing outside our house I saw my uncle, who had just returned from Las Vegas, lighting people’s cigarettes with a lighter shaped like a naked lady who shot a double flame from – lets just say incase the Bish is reading this – the area around her cleavage.
All in all it was the week from hell. My family have been living under a dark cloud for the past few months with my Dad’s illness. Some day soon the sun will shine through.