Merry Christmas? Not for this Santa!

WAKING with a start, I knew the nightmare was true. Christmas was on its way. It was going to be difficult this year now that I’d lost my sleigh licence and become a ‘free agent’ Santa. I had taken the team for a drink at the pub after last year’s successful Christmas. On the way home, Rudolph, who’d had too many elderberry wines and eggnogs, tried to impress Dancer, my lead sleigh reindeer, by going too fast and we all ended up in the ditch. Those stuck-up, nosey garden gnomes at the vicarage saw it all and shopped us to the Old Bill. Well, I lost my sleigh licence for five years, the vet took away the reindeer and the council revoked my Christmas present delivery permit. My union, BURPS (British Union of Registered Practising Santas) wasn’t much help. I told ’em: ‘I won’t be coming down your chimneys any more.’ The JobCentre broke the news to me that there wasn’t much call for a fat, red-faced, white-bearded old man on the jewellery counter at the local upmarket departmental store. So it looks as if I’ll have to take the supermarket santa shift scheme in the grotty grotto with those evil little green elves. Sitting there all day with loads of kids jumping all over you, pulling your beard, punching you in the stomach and trying to stick their smart phones where the sun doesn’t shine . . . Thank heavens Christmas comes only once a year!

John Murphy, Meopham, Kent.