Christmas gives parents a small insight into SantaÕs stresses

Date Published: 12-Dec-2012

Given that they were his own colours of choice, you’d have thought that Santa Claus would know the difference between the respective red and white shirts of Liverpool and Arsenal.

But when you wake up on Christmas morning to look under the tree, consumed with the expectation of finding a smaller version of the shirt regularly worn by Kevin Keegan, only to find that it’s the one associated with Alan Ball and Malcolm McDonald, then the day is off to the worst possible start.

And so it is that, for all of the great Christmases and perfect presents, it’s the year it all went wrong that lives longest in the memory – which is why all those elves at the North Pole are working overtime to ensure that mistakes are kept to the minimum.

And it also explains why the desire to get it right as soon as possible means the shops and websites are already inundated with browsers who want to ensure that Santa is provided with clear advice on what to leave under that tree.

And even with the combined efforts of Santa’s little helpers to keep costs down, this is big business in the shops – the UK toy market is the biggest in Europe, worth £2.9 billion in 2011, with Christmas responsible for £1 billion, or 34 per cent, of that.

Therefore – given the scale of this thing – the occasional disappointment has to go with the territory.

With the benefit of hindsight looking back over 40 years, perhaps Santa had too much on his mind back then, dropping millions of big parcels through tiny chimneys, but any football fan of any vintage will tell you that Arsenal’s red jersey has white sleeves, and if you get that wrong, you might as well go the whole hog and make it a Man United jersey altogether.

This was also the era before replica jerseys became the outfit of choice for males everywhere; there was no short sponsor and no badge, and the replication really went no further than the fact that they were roughly the same colour.

No Premiership pads, no number, no name, no crest, no aerodynamic fibre that accentuates the six pack for the professionals and highlights the consumption of a keg for the rest of us.

Of course, one of the other differences between then and now was that we understood the notion of delayed gratification – in other words, we got presents twice a year at most (birthdays and Christmas) and we spent several months looking forward to either or both.

Glynn’s was our only toy store and more often than not, that was experienced through the front window only; then came the Christmas visit to Santa and the chance to take a closer look at what might be coming your way if you were good.

But back then Christmas used to start on December 8, when all of us country people came into town – now it doesn’t even wait for Halloween to get out of your hair before the trees and the tinsel go up for what has become the two-month festive season.

So the first thing the shops do is come up with a top ten wish list of the toys that every girl and boy want this year – the toys that will then sell out before you can ensure Santa gets a full supply.

This year, if the shops still stock them so close to the big day, make sure he knows that web-shooting Spider-Man figurines, a Nerf gun that can hit victims up to 75 feet away, and ghoulish dolls such as Frankie Stein and Draculaura are on the ‘most sought-after’ list.

And still the old reliable rear their heads because Lego is there – even if it is a version of the Mines of Moria sequence from the Lord of the Rings films, whatever that might be – and an electronic dance version of Hasbro’s Twister.

So too are Furbies and Cabbage Patch Kids, which will bring to mind a whole different nightmare for thousands of parents from Christmases past, when these little creatures never made it under the tree.

For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.