Santas Little Helper

Richard Bell Dads Column – Issue 11

Twas the night before Christmas, and all around the house nothing stirred…except the shrieks and shrill screams of a two year old girl totally focused on staying awake to see

Father Christmas make his way down the narrow flue of our stove fire!

"Now that I’d like to see!" I murmur sipping a well deserved Bailey’s at the only time of the year men are allowed a ladies drink!

I was glad she's not at that age where I'd have to actually figure out the science of a two hundred and fifty-pound man squeezing down an aperture fourteen inches in diameter!

It is now ten o’clock…that's PM…and my daughter is leaping about her room as though Red Bull had replaced her milk! She’s sneezing because the tinsel moustache and beard she was sporting earlier to amuse Grandma, has left strands sticking out of her nose and mouth. These strands are held firmly in place by the melted chocolate buttons she had hidden under her bed for such an occasion. The rest of the buttons are actually buttons on her clean white PJ’s and the whole ensemble is finished off with a pair of Reindeer antler ‘deely boppers’ currently being used to butt me every time I make an attempt to tuck her into bed!

"Ah! The season of good wi…." That one I didn’t see coming.

This year the tattered remains of a once chocolate filled advent calendar hangs precariously next to the enormous Scooby Doo stocking which drapes over a table laden with treats for Santa on his long journey around the world to the homes of all the best behaved little girls and boys. "Have you been good this year, sweetheart?" I ask her. She reciprocates with her big soul full blue eyes and pearly whites delivering a crushing defeat to any attempt of scolding her for not being in bed.

"I think Santa would like it if you were asleep as he is very busy and doesn't have time to stop and talk to every one tonight!"

Again, those soul full baby blues are staring with a trusting intensity; eager to believe in the magic I was experiencing all over again through my daughter.

It’s funny how things have a way of turning full circle!

The whole of Christmas Eve had been a chaotic whirlwind of preparations, aggravation, anticipation and palpitations! My wife has honed her skill of drill instructor to a fine art with a devastating combination of pitch and resonance.

"Who has eaten the chocolate shortbread biscuits?"

"Not me…It isn’t me…honestly, I haven't touched them…Maybe just one…but grandma had five or maybe six." I quickly brushed the crumbs off the front of my shirt after a ‘caution’ from the biscuit police!

At that moment I receive a text message. It's Keith, a long time friend whose puerile sense of humour rivals that of my daughter’s. It reads:

"Darth Vader knows what he’s got for Christmas this year…He’s felt his presents!"

I’m laughing, my daughter’s laughing but doesn't know why and my wife, less than amused, hands me a frantic scribbled note:

"Tesco…Little sausages, stuffing, crackers!"

If only Leslie Philips was here…Ding, Dong!

The drive was dimly lit and dreary with the din of a mighty tuneless voice happily belting out songs from a Nursery Rhyme tape released by a choir of Cornish farmers! I hadn't the heart to turn it off as she started tapping her foot as well to her favourite track "What's that smell in the farmyard"!

Tesco, at four p.m., was jammed with ‘last minute dads’ on errands bribing their children with all kinds of fantastic promises if they behaved themselves and kept clean. I put the ‘Diva’ in one of those little car trolleys and raced round to the frozen food section leaving a trail of raisins (the ones in the little boxes with about twenty in!) presumably to find our way out of the labyrinth of aisles?

Having left a ransacked superstore, we drove home past a garden centre where a forty-foot inflatable Santa was billowing in a crisp December breeze.

"Do you want to see Father Christmas?" I knowingly ask to which I am greeted with jumping jubilation, kicking the headrest of the passenger seat like Jackie Chan!

Inside, the cheesy synthetic Christmas music and lack lustre faces under worn Santa hats seemed to reflect the mood of the shoppers and ‘browsers’, like myself, who were either grabbing last minute stocking fillers’ or filling time until the ‘better half’ had finished cleaning to Nasa standards!

Christmas was officially ‘weary’ and my daughter was trudging aimlessly past the fantastic neon displays, model villages and fibre optic snowmen she once ‘wowed’ at when it was launched in early October!

Suddenly she dashed off into the fake trees, emerging with a small but very realistic reindeer made of rabbit and goat fur. She was giggling with delight, stroking and pointing at its shiny shoes and glossy red nose. Hugging it like her favourite dolly, she raised it high above her head and bellowed: "Daddy, BB, BB." (Which was actually Bambi)

By now she's entertaining a crowd of pensioners as she hugged and cooed:

"Ahh! Pretty BB, Ahh!"

And that’s when it struck me what Christmas actually means. It’s not a mountain of pre ordered ‘must have’ toys or a contest to see whose house can be seen from space! It's not about gorging oneself on the endless variety of processed sugar and fat or how many cards you have this year compared to last or the sale shopping the next day! It’s none of that commercial bunkum.

It is the unexpected surprises that grab you when you are least expecting them and bring genuine joy. It is the innocent belief that isn’t accompanied by a bar code scanner ‘beep’ nor has a fake costume and beard and company logo emblazoned on the grotto!

This year I caught a glimpse of a sleigh racing between the gaps in the cloud above our house. Of course it could have been a helicopter or jet but this year it was a sleigh with one reindeer missing.

This year Rudolph was sleeping soundly next to a little girl with antlers of her own.