Opinion

Bimpe Archer: It's time parents got their stories straight on Christmas

We’re all agreed that SANTA IS REAL 
We’re all agreed that SANTA IS REAL  We’re all agreed that SANTA IS REAL 

“SANTA is real, isn’t he?” the five-year-old asked his father.

He’s in P1. He hadn’t even written his first letter to the bearded chap at the North Pole. There’s cynical and then there’s the next generation of Archers.

The fevered post mortem commenced.

“Why would he even ask that?” I demanded. “What would make him think he wasn’t real?”

It was eight days before we were due to catch the Santa Express for a friend’s birthday party and I had no way of knowing if the incarnation on the train would be… well… Santa-y enough to convince a young doubter.

Would it be better to book a visit at another Grotto as a back-up? Or would that just throw more polar bears among the reindeer? That’s always seemed a risky strategy to me, given the (ahem) variations in the representations out there.

On one hand, this is a child who didn’t recognise his best friend after the summer holidays because he had changed his shoes. On the other, he was very unimpressed by Rainbow Dash’s human hands and the eyes he spotted looking through the costume’s muzzle. It was a conundrum all right.

You have visions, don’t you, of passing on all your very specific traditions to your children. But, of course, they’re not just your children so somehow you must blend two traditions as best you can. Not easy, but doable.

But then, then there’s the rest of the world.

“Santa doesn’t wrap presents, he leaves them all out on the sofa.”

“Santa leaves presents at the end of the bed.”

“He fills the stocking at the end of the bed and then there are other presents downstairs.”

“He builds the toys.”

“The toys come in boxes.”

And if that’s not bad enough, there’s all kind of newfangled complications to wrangle.

I had been doing my best to ignore the Elf on the Shelf craze when it arrived (never start a tradition you can’t be bothered keeping up, is my approach to parenting) but I hadn’t counted on it popping up in other people’s houses and at school.

“Why don’t we have an Elf on the Shelf?” I was asked earlier this week, just as the `Is Santa real?’ debate was finally behind us.

“Er, I’m not sure,” I said cautiously, having no idea whether they just arrived independently of Saint Nick, or if a fresh can of worms was about to be opened.

“Shall we make some hot chocolate?”

One bullet dodged, but the sniper was still firing from the grassy knoll.

“I wrote my letter to Santa and posted it at school. I asked for a robot dinosaur.” A what now?

“What happened to the camera? You can’t ask Santa for everything.”

“I only asked him for two things,” he pointed out reasonably. Game. Set. Match.

Meanwhile: “That’s Santa’s spy camera!”

“No, it’s a smoke alarm.”

I’m not big on the blackmailing of infants, so I tend to gloss over the whole `naughty and nice’ list thing.

“No [more determined this time] it’s Santa’s spy camera, Miss XXXX told me!” Well heck, I don’t want to undermine Miss XXXX’s authority so it seems I’m stuck with a creepy Christmas Cam in my house.

Here’s the thing, people, can’t we all just get together and get our stories straight? It’s not Brexit. I don’t even care what the agreed processes are, just that they are flipping well agreed. Write it all down – bullet points are fine – and stick to the text. The Bounty lady can hand the pamphlet out in the maternity ward. Or it can be stapled in at the back of the red baby book.

Either that or keep your peculiar customs to yourselves. In your own houses. Never speak of them outside. Or if you do, keep it vague and loose.

We’re all agreed that SANTA IS REAL. Don’t gild the lily. Keep it simple.

Oh, and while we’re it, no way does the Tooth Fairy leave £10. It’s 50p.

Maximum.