On Christmas Eve the shopping centre was seething with people, squabbling over the last turkeys and getting in each other's way. Every
shop was playing Christmas songs and the music overlapped into a mishmash of jingly cheer.
In the queue for Santa's Magical Grotto, I stuffed my fingers in my ears. I was sick of Christmas and no sparkly white fibreglass cottage was about to change that.
It's not as if I'm the only person in the world who doesn't like Christmas. Millions of people don't even celebrate it. But they don't have to live with parents who love Christmas. We always have our decorations up from the start of November; and not just tinsel and twinkly lights. Glowing snowmen chase each other across our front lawn, Santas swing from the windows and reindeer prance on the roof. Inside, every surface is covered with crackers
and Yule logs; every wall plastered with cards; even the ceilings garnished with holly and mistletoe. It's as though Christmas exploded
and spattered pieces of itself everywhere.
We reached the front of the line for the grotto and a woman in a bright green elf costume beamed at me.
"Don't you look Christmassy?" she trilled, looking at the red velvet coat with the fur-trimmed hood Mum had insisted on making for me.
"You don't know the half of it!" Dad said.
"Tomorrow is her birthday!" Mum added. "So this is a birthday treat for her as well."
Typical. I've never had a birthday that wasn't completely drowned in an ocean of Christmas festivity. Just once it would be nice to have a birthday dinner that wasn't turkey, or cake that wasn't fruitcake, or do something – anything – that wasn't Christmas themed or Christmas related in any way.
Inside the grotto was a man with a snowy white beard and twinkly eyes, dressed like me in crimson velvet trimmed with furry white.
"Ho ho ho!" he began. "You must be Carol."
I wasn't impressed with him knowing my name — there was a clipboard with a list on it right next to him. Besides, at this time of year my name's just embarrassing; like the punchline of a bad joke.
"And what would you like for Christmas?"
Santa continued, as if he wasn't just going to hand over some standard gift out of the brown sack at his feet.
"Honestly?" I said. "I'd like my parents to lay off all the Christmas cheer."
Mum sucked in her breath sharply and Dad choked on the mince pie he was stuffing into his mouth. But Santa just raised his bushy eyebrows.
"Is that so?" he said. "Well, let's see what we can do. Hold this for me, please?" he said to Dad, handing him the sack. "Perhaps you'd
take this?" He passed Mum the clipboard.
"Now, all of you, follow me."
He got up from his chair and opened a door in the back of the cottage and ushered us though.
My feet crunched on fresh crisp snow. Instead of the back room I'd expected, we were outside, in a pine forest, near nine reindeer harnessed to a sleigh. A bustling crowd of elves were loading bulging sacks on to it.
"All right then," said Santa. He nudged Dad toward the sleigh. "Get those gifts loaded."
He turned to Mum. "You've got the list … make sure to check it twice." His red cheeks glowed with merriment. "As you're such fans of Christmas this will be a real treat for you! And after 2,000 years on the job, I'll enjoy having
a break from it. Come on, Carol, let's go inside."
The house was cosy and warm with a crackling fire, so Santa and I hung up our coats. Like me, he was wearing jeans and a T-shirt underneath his fur-trimmed outfit. Outside the window Dad was already rubbing his back as he heaved the sack of presents on to the sleigh. Mum was frowning over the list, which seemed a lot longer than it had when Santa had given it to her – long enough to list several million children.
"It's only 12 hours to Christmas," Santa said. "And after the sleigh's been loaded and the list checked, there's the delivering to do. All that squeezing up and down chimneys and circling the world in a single night."
I looked at Dad, whose paunch was almost as ample as Santa's, and then at Mum, who gets travelsick just standing at the bus stop. I tried not to giggle.
"And the mince pies," Santa mused. "Somehow, after you've eaten several
thousand, you're not quite so keen on them."
He smiled at me. "How about we order some
pizza?"
