I’m no longer a helper, but the Big Man would have me back in a heartbeat

There are many things I miss about having small children at Christmas, but one thing I certainly don’t get mistyeyed over are my stints as Santa’s Little Helper when the lists of demands — which in this house sometimes resembled ransom notes — proved beyond even that great man’s reach.

There was the flying doll, of course. I don’t know where The Small Girl came across it — it certainly wasn’t in any of the multiple Smyth’s catalogues that were treated in our household with the same reverence that the Bible enjoys in others — and I never once saw it advertised on television. But she was very specific about its requirements: it would be like a beautiful fairy and would come with a launcher and, when fired into the air, it would twirl gracefully back to Earth. I can’t remember now what it was called but she knew the name and sure enough, when I scoured the fledgling internet, it was a real thing and not something she had imagined (which she was also quite prone to doing.) And they only sold them in America, which might have been enough to prompt most parents to gently suggest their six-year-old rework their Santa letter — especially since the flying doll was more of a “and finally” present than a headline request. But God help me, I was awful soft where Christmas was concerned, and so I did a mail order thing (“online shopping” being still a twinkle in Jeff Bezos’s eye), and weeks later, just in time for the main event, the f lying doll finally landed, the whole effort having cost about three times more in shipping and some surprise customs tarriffs than the actual doll did. And in the meantime, I had lived my life with a permanent sick feeling in the pit of my stomach, in fear that the little flying fecker might not make it in time. And she did look like a beautiful fairy and she did twirl gracefully back to earth on the (oh, three?) occasions that her new owner played with her.

I had that same sick feeling so many times during the Santa years. There was a Buzz Lightyear that had to be smuggled in from London, and a Baby Bop that was sent by a sympathetic friend in New York.

And then there were the Figmas. Oh God, the Figmas. I was quite uite impressed when The Youngest became me e interested in Japanese animation, but the associated merch almost broke my heart. And my budget. These incredibly fragile action figures could take months and small fortunes to make their way from Japan, in cardboard boxes covered with the sort of important looking stickers you used to see on suitcases in films. Waiting for them to show up was a bit like phoning for blood test results; a potent mixture of powerlessness, dread and foreboding. They weren’t even proper toys, as I never tired of pointing out, because they were too delicate to play with — though not too delicate for The Dog to repeatedly knock from their appointed shelf with his tail when he went into The Youngest’s bedroom to wake her up for school.

At least with the Nintendos and Wiis, there was a sense of communal angst. Back then, before WhatsApp groups, parents would text each other short, cryptic messages like “Tallaght taking orders” or “Fonthill Road, Monday,” and we would all obligingly fly on our nerves to the designated Smyth’s in the hope of securing the must-have consoles of any given year.

And here’s the thing: in all those years, and through all those letters, Santa always found a way. We never had to resort to substitution or knock offs, and we didn’t have to deal with the sort of diplomatic crisis that faced The Youngest’ sb est friend’s parents when she asked Santa for ‘magical powers’.

The Small Girl’s first Christmas coincided with the advent of Tellytubbies, which very quickly became bigger than The Beatles and Jesus put together. Just six months old, The Small Girl was captivated by this fab four, and would rock herself furiously back and forward in her chair whenever they appeared on screen. The subsequent shortage of toys was so severe that on that Christmas morning, Mass was packed with happy small children playing with obvious fake Tinky Winkys, knitted Dipseys and patchwork La Las. Only The Small Girl, too young to appreciate the achievement, had a real Po. Because, it turned out, when it’s your very first Christmas as a Grandad, you are willing to queue up outside Dunnes Stores at six o’clock on a freezing December morning just to make sure Santa is sorted. Now, doesn’t that beat Banagher.