I met Santa the other day.
Yeah yeah, so what, I hear you mutter. You aren’t the first parent to suffer so: miserable Santa, long queues, yellowing cotton-wool snow, jingle bells over broken speakers, luke-warm mulled wine served in Styrofoam cups, ding dong, ding dong, yadda yadda yadda.
Well, I think it’s only fair, from one parent to another, that I share my story of survival as a warning, in case you somehow find yourself at a random play-farm in Hampshire and end up being ushered into the same messed-up twilight zone of festivities I entered into so unsuspectingly. At least this way, being forewarned, you can go forearmed, with a casket of booze, because you’ll need it.
This is what happened. To add a layer of realism I have presented this as a script, in case any of us ever fancy re-enacting the experience.
Cast List: Family Amor
The Children (in order of age and experience):
Iris: wordly-wise, sweet-natured (with a steely core) and the perceptive one. Is an excellent jouster and master builder of Lego.
Al: generally oblivious, over-excited, hugely enthusiastic and a bit of a sensitive flower. Likes jumping on things, ignoring people, drawing and telling stories.
Callum: the go-getter, an unstoppable force and an immovable object all rolled into one, cheeky, irrepressible and generally adorable in every way (interestingly, auto-correct changes ‘Callum’ to ‘fall in’ on my phone, which seems oddly appropriate).
Brody: the baby, all big eyes, dribbly jowls and peachy smiles. Likes chewing things, looking handsome and keeping his parents awake all night.
The Parents (not in age order, not getting into that fight)
Jim: has dressed in exact same clothes as his brother Andy, except for shoes.
Kate: Zumba goddess, feeling a little jaded post-party.
Gem: not a Zumba goddess, feeling a lot jaded after a day in a boiling hot glass-making forge.
Andy: has dressed in exact same clothes as Jim, almost as if they had a text exchange before arriving.
Clare: the organised one, holder of the tickets/Santa passports.
Jordan: chief Elf-lifter
Scene One:
EXT. Santa’s Departure Lounge. Day.
Family Amor, including six adults and four children under the age of six, skip unsuspectingly and enthusiastically towards ‘Santa Flights Departure Lounge’. This is a large marquee with a check-in desk and a smiling man dressed in a red flight attendant’s outfit holding open the door.
Actually, ‘enthusiastically’ may be an exaggeration, as all three Mums are exhausted from sleep deprivation, both self-inflicted and child-inflicted, pre-Christmas hysteria, and over-exertion during a glass-blowing course for beginners. The Dads are keeping quiet about their own tiredness as they know that competitive exhaustion is a surefire way to lose at everything in life, once embarked upon. Better to simply suffer in silence than try to win.
The children are, as usual, full of beans.
GEMMA (on approaching)
Let’s hope they don’t have a serial killer Penguin this time.
The adults snort in laughter. Last season’s Santa experience finished with a giant sleigh in a darkened room. Inside that sleigh, motionless and silent, sat a large man dressed as a penguin. Occasionally he would reach out and stroke one of the children’s shoulders in a sinister fashion. It was fucking weird.
ANDY
I don’t even think he worked there, you know. I think he was just some pervert who walked in off the street.
The group shudders, and enters the Departure lounge.
Scene Two:
INT. Santa’s Departure Lounge. Still Day.
Family Amor are ushered into the departure lounge. There is a large security scanner of the type you find in an airport, right in front of the group. Each member of the family is asked to walk through the scanner to see whether they have consumed too much chocolate. Each and every one of the men in the group sets off a ‘too much chocolate’ alarm, which means they are on Santa’s naughty list.
GEMMA (wipes brow)
Phew.
ANDY (incredulous)
How the hell did you avoid that??
Family Amor are shown to a waiting room replete with white plastic patio chairs. The adults attempt to wrangle the children into a group photo. Al steadfastly refuses to look at the camera until Gemma whispers something in his ear.
PARENTS (collectively)
Say Cheese!
IRIS
Cheese!
CALLUM
CHEEESSSSSHHE!
AL
POO BUM WILLY!! POO BUM WILLY!!!
Parents face palm and take pictures anyway.
Scene Three:
INT. Waiting room. Still Day.
A young girl dressed as an elf attempts to distract those in the waiting room by asking the same inane question over and over again in a voice reserved specifically for idiot dogs that are hard of hearing.
ELF-DEMON(to each child in turn)
WHAT ADVENT CALENDAR HAVE YOU GOT THEN, EH? EH?? EHHH?!!!
Family Amor lean back in their chairs collectively. One small child tumbles backwards, somersaulting in fear as the Elf- Demon advances and shrieks her Advent Calendar death cry full into the child’s face.
Gemma represses a giggle. Clare shoots her a warning look.
CLARE:
Don’t get us chucked out of here like you did the wedding fair I took you to.
GEMMA (muffled laughter)
MhMMMMHhhMMMMhh, er, sorry.
ELF-DEMON
Right, thanks for waiting everyone! Let’s meet Santa!
Family are ushered into a small darkened room with seating.
Scene Four:
INT. Santa’s Sleigh. Nightime (apparently)
Family Amor realise they are in a sleigh, hooked up to two animatronic reindeer. It’s dark, there are twinkly stars, Christmas music is playing.
Family Amor begin to think this is not so bad. Jordan resists the urge to take a quick nap. Baby Brody’s eyes look like they are about to climb out of his skull.
Another Elf materialises. He’s about six-foot four, clearly no older than fourteen, has an Adam’s apple as prominent as the Empire State Building and a voice that can’t be trusted, due to aforementioned Adam’s apple. Family Amor later realise that his voice sounds like sodding Pavarotti in comparison to what awaits them.
PRE- PUBESCENT ELF
Who wants to go to Bethlehem, then?
ALL CHILDREN PRESENT (pouting):
No, we want to go and visit Santa in the North Pole!!
PRE- PUBESCENT ELF
Tough, we’re going to Bethlehem.
Pre-Pubescant Elf flicks a switch, and the sleigh begins to move, gently. The reindeer clunk and clank away magically, whisking everyone off to Bethlehem.
JAMES (from corner of mouth)
At this speed, we should get to Bethlehem at approximately midnight on this day in 2145.
The sleigh eventually shudders to a halt, about a hundred years later, and the passengers disembark through a thick dark curtain.
Scene Five:
EXT. Bethlehem. Mid-afternoon.
Family Amor quickly realise they are either in war-torn Afghanistan, or Bethlehem. Battered, bruised whitewashed buildings line sandy streets. Moroccan rugs and lanterns lie strewn about as if abandoned during an airstrike. Hidden amongst the debris are some plastic elf monstrosities that have absolutely fuck all to do with the Nativity.
Family Amor wander hesitantly through ‘Bethlehem’, all of them rendered mildly speechless. It is beginning to dawn on them that this Santa experience is going to be a full-blown, no-effort-spared experience.
The tour finishes a short distance away, at the end of the ‘street’. There, the nativity spreads out before them under the shelter of a stable that thankfully, avoided American missiles. All the usual suspects are there: Mary, Joseph, Baby Jesus, and a donkey.
GEMMA (excited)
That Donkey is going to do something, I can tell!
ANDY (nudges Gemma)
Shhh, of course it’s going to do something. Be quiet!
Pre-Pubescant Elf introduces the Donkey, the only part of which is visible is it’s head, thrust menacingly through a dark hole in the wall of the stable. It’s name is Arthur. It’s eyes are closed, as if in prayer, solemn contemplation, or perhaps it’s plotting to kill everyone in the room.
Pre-Pubescant Elf asks children to shout at Arthur to wake him up.
ASSEMBLED CHILDREN (shouting)
WAKE UP ARTHUR!
Arthur the Donkey wakes up. It’s eyes open. It’s head jerks about in a horrible parody of life, like a Jim Henson creation gone terribly wrong.
ARTHUR THE DONKEY (in creaking, forbidding tones):
Well helllloooooo there, my little cherubs!
GEMMA (jumping out of skin despite fully expecting and understanding what was about to happen)
SHIT!
OTHER PARENTS (crossly)
Shhhhhhhh!
Gemma promptly dissolves into giggles, which last the entire twenty minutes of Arthur the Donkey’s retelling of the story of the birth of Jesus. At one point she starts snorting, unable to contain her mirth, at which other parents start throwing dirty looks in her direction.
Finally, Arthur the Donkey winds down his speech, and Family Amor are allowed to escape the thinly veiled religious indoctrination.
Gemma needs a bit of help walking as they head towards the door that leads out of Bethlehem. She is almost calm, and almost composed, when another Elf leaps out from behind a damaged Kasbah and starts shrieking.
SHRIEKING ELF (shrieking)
UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!
Gemma starts laughing openly, and helplessly, as do other members of the Amor Family, more in shock than anything else. No-one has any idea what the Shrieking Elf is saying. The Shrieking Elf is just….shrieking.
But the children seem to find him funny.
The assembled group stand, frozen in indecision, as the Shrieking Elf leaps about, bashes into things, shrieks (obviously) and liberally covers everyone in spittle.
He then leads them off into a forest, shrieking non-stop at an eardrum-bursting frequency.
Scene Six:
EXT. Forest. Twilight.
The forest is alive with deer, foxes, squirrels, and birds, all of them stuffed and mounted to tiny motors of the type that power toy trains. They dance, spin, jerk and twitch about in a shocking imitation of nature. It’s a tapestry of death, a balletic entree to hell.
The Shrieking Elf continues to shriek.
SHRIEKING ELF (shrieking)
UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!UNINTELLIGIBLE SCREAMING!
As Family Amor wander through the dark and twisted forest, they encounter other creatures, like rabbits, which look a bit like they might be leftovers from an Easter display. Each of them has eyes that can rip holes into a man’s soul. They are the stuff of nightmares.
AL(whispering, eyeing up the rabbits nervously)
Mummy, when do we get to see Santa?
GEMMA (shoulders shaking, tears dribbling down her cheeks)
I don’t know darling. I just don’t know about anything, anymore.
Scene Seven:
INT. Toy Shop. Twilight.
More elves displace the Shrieking Elf. They too have high-pitched voices that scrape at the nerves. They go through a toy-shop performance that no-one can understand or remember.
Dotted around the room are several plaster Santa statues. The children begin to whimper and look for the next exit.
GEMMA (leaning in to Kate)
Did you drop acid in my coffee?
KATE
We didn’t get any fucking coffee. I wish we had.
Scene Eight:
INT. Toy town. Twilight.
The Elves drag all the Dads onto a stage, and make them sing, and dance. The Dads look ecstatic about it. The pirouette clumsily in time to ‘Faith’ by George Michael and Gemma starts to hyperventilate.
The finale looms and Jordan is forced to slow-dance with the older Elf, who finishes by taking a running jump at him, arms stretched wide. Jordan catches him, holds him up in the air just like Patrick Swayze as the theme from Dirty Dancing blares out over hidden speakers, and then promptly drops him.
JORDAN (under his breath)
If you ever touch me again, I’ll creep into your bedroom at night and stuff your pillow down your throat.
Scene Nine:
INT. Mrs. Santa’s kitchen. Time of day indeterminate.
The children decorate cookies. The parents look exhausted, knowing full well they are nowhere close to meeting Santa and in addition, they will have to carry paper plates bearing biscuits, covered in icing sugar and marshmallows, for the rest of the tour.
Scene Ten:
EXT. Frozen palace setting. Daytime.
There is an Elsa, because let’s not forget that Disney is Christmas. To compensate for the femininity of this, there is also Spiderman. Spiderman is quite small, has breasts, and heavily penciled-in eyebrows visible behind the mask eye-holes.
JORDAN (peering closely at Spiderman)
Are you wearing eye-liner?
Scene Eleven:
INT. Theatre. Night.
There are lots of Christmas lights set up on stage. A light show ensues, Frozen’s Let It Go, again because Disney = Christmas. Then the stage erupts into a heavy-metal rendition of Jingle bells that is both brilliant and laden with doom. Which is fitting.
Scene Twelve:
A giant teddy bear palace. Day.
Family Amor are shown into the twelfth room of the tour, having now walked about sixteen miles.
This room is the strangest by far: enormous, wide-eyed teddy bears stare maniacally at the group from various points around the room. In the centre of the room, holding court amongst the giant bears, are two huge white rabbits, both of whom look like they stand in for Donnie Darko when he’s having an ‘off ‘ day.
The rabbits start speaking to the children, probably in tongue. The parents begin to wonder when they can wake up from this nightmare.
Gemma, looking around, spots a single, disembodied hand just… lying there.
Just a hand. A single, solitary hand.
It’s so symbolic of her day thus far that it does not faze her.
She takes a photo of it, for posterity.
The rabbits keep on talking. The children’s hypnosis proceeds. Gemma wonders if there ever was a Santa, of if this whole charade was simply the Devil’s ruse to lure them into the underworld.
Scene Thirteen:
Santa’s Waiting Room.
There is another room. Family Amor wonder how there could possibly be another fucking room.
This one has singing animatronic reindeer.
No-one pays them any attention. Instead, the room is silent as a shell-shocked group sit, staring into space, desperately trying to process the events of the past hour and forty minutes.
Scene Fourteen:
INT. Santa’s Den. Nighttime.
The Family Amor collapse in relief into Santa’s lap.
Santa looks at them worriedly, muttering soothing words of reassurance.
Gifts are given. Smiles return to children’s faces. The end is near. The parents limp hopefully towards what should be the last exit.
Santa (jovially)
Ho ho ho! Merry Christmas! Hope to see you next year!
Family Amor run.
Help, I'm a Mother 