The Last Straw/Frank McNally: We had a small crisis at the playschool Christmas party the other night. Mostly, as usual, it was a pleasant evening
And, as usual, the highlight was the arrival of Santa Claus, around whose toy-sack my son Patrick and his classmates gathered in a scene from a Norman Rockwell painting, their little eyes wide with the simple joy of rampant consumerism.
At the edge of the circle was Patrick's sister Roisín who, although she graduated to real school this year, was as excited as the others when Santa produced his list and started calling the names. The parents watched, smiling indulgently, from the back of the hall when - aaarrghhh! - a thought hit me, like a lump-hammer. The list would be from the playschool roll-book! Roisín would not be on it! Immediately activating emergency plan A, I crept up and whispered in her ear. You know how this is not the real Santa, I asked. She nodded. Well, it's not the real list, either, I said. You know, the one with all the good boys and girls in the world? In fact, it's probably only the boys and girls attending play-school. In the, eh, current year, I added, studying her reaction.
She considered this information, and with humbling maturity for a five-year-old, nodded again, calmly. So I crept back to where my wife was. "Don't worry," I said, "she's cool."
To prove my point, a few names later, Roisín quietly detached herself from the circle and came to join the grown-ups. We were so proud of her for taking it well, and not being scarred for life. Then we noticed she was biting her lip. Then her face crumpled. Then two big tears (also by Norman Rockwell) rolled down her cheeks. Which is when we activated emergency plan B, and inquired of Santa's backroom people if bribery would help.
Luckily, we were able to bump one of the other kids off the "good" list, on trumped-up charges. Yes, I'm joking. It turned out that - being a responsible, properly licensed Santa - this one had a few toys in reserve, for playschool alumni and other unforeseen events. And to cut a long story short, Christmas was saved.
It's a big responsibility being Santa, and you have to be flexible. Of course, no-one is more flexible than the man himself. A point I made to Roisín when we were discussing arrangements for next Wednesday, and she drew my attention to an apparent discrepancy between Santa's body shape and the width of our chimney. I assured her that despite his weight problem, the big guy is as pliable as a bent planning official, and she needn't worry.
In fact, Santa only assumed his current shape in the 1930s. Having started life as a fourth- century saint and shrank over the next millennium, gradually evolving into a Scandinavian gnome. Although always chubby, early representations show he had the correct weight/height ratio (for a gnome), and a variety of costume colours, not just red. In the Dutch tradition, he even had a sidekick called "Black Pete", who sounds like he had a wooden leg and a parrot on his shoulder, but whose job was to take away the bad children! Not surprisingly, Black Pete was let go from the operation at some stage. Meanwhile, Santa appears to have let himself go during the 19th century, piling on the pounds relentlessly. Then, in 1931, a Coca-Cola advertising campaign permanently enshrined him as the big, red-suited fat man (the Coke drinking didn't help) we know today.
Since when, his struggles with chimneys have been exacerbated by the obvious blood pressure that the 1931 artist also gave him.
Despite these handicaps, he's expected to make it down all the right flues again this week, and the only concern in our house is what he will bring. For weeks now, Patrick has been declaring confidently that it will be something called "action-man-the-final-combat-and-hot-wheels-leading-the-way". He always says this in one breath, and it was only last week I finally realised there were two products involved. At which point, I looked them both up.
The second appears to be a computer game, and between you and me and Black Pete, there's no way in hell he's getting that. As for the other, apparently it features a "bruised and bloodied" Action Man grappling with "evil Dr X", who has three arms, two of them removable ("hear him laugh and scream"), and a "life-like circular saw".
I don't expect Santa to stock this either. So when I wrote to him the other day, I just suggested surprises for both kids. If he's got anything for adults, I added, I'd like a ban on children's TV advertising.