Kids won over by decrepit old Santa

It's a Dad's Life:This should be easy. December is all about Christmas, New Year and, in my house, birthdays. All I need to do is write about being with the kids and the excitement of it all.

It's just that, after the events of last week when my cousin was buried, it's hard to contemplate having fun. It seems wrong to walk away and get on with things as normal. All around are exhortations to eat, drink, spend, indulge, indulge, indulge. We'll do our best.

Take Santa, for example. This year we did a bit of research. One Sunday newspaper recommended a particular department store's Mr Claus as the best value Ho-Ho-Ho- er in town and so, suggestible lemmings that we are, we trooped in on a weekday afternoon to catch him in all his festive glory.

The "weekday afternoon" part of that sentence is very important. All you parents who spent more than two hours queuing for the privilege of a private audience with a grown man with a drinker's nose in dress-up clothes last weekend will curse me when you hear we walked straight into the big man's grotto, and ne'er an elf to stand in our way. Sometimes the life of a freelancer has its advantages.

The younger had been keen as mustard at the prospect of meeting Santa. Unfortunately, she had no real idea of what he was. Until then she had been bedazzled by pictures everywhere of a rotund marshmallow, some sort of jocular pudding with a vague promise of presents. I can only guess that Santa, until that cruel moment of revelation, was more conceptual joy than human reality to her two-year-old mind. I say cruel revelation because Santa was no chocolate-box poster boy.

We heard his bell from behind the fake, snow-topped conifers. His hearty welcome boomed through the acrid, overheated shop floor. The younger slipped from my grip and sprinted in its direction. Myself and the Missus shouted encouragement, "Go on, that's Santa, he'll have a present for you!"

The child reached the corner where she had a clean line of sight for the first time and stopped in her tracks.

All the plastic, garishly lit decorations on the neighbourhood houses she has spent weeks roaring in amazement at, had suddenly been made flesh. "Hello there, little one," he bellowed, "Come see what I have for you". The younger found her feet and sprinted into my arms as the elder ambled by, a veteran of fake beards and itchy velour suits, at this stage.

I gathered up my traumatised child and strolled on. What I was ultimately greeted with, shocked even me. The sores on Santa's bulbous nose seemed to be weeping slightly. His gloves were grey with grime and had a couple of suspiciously claret stains.

I am hoping they were claret rather than bodily fluids. His tunic flapped open around the midriff where a button had come loose to reveal a saggy, but surprisingly skinny, Santa stomach. I struggled to take it all in at once and, even as the whole grotesque vision became apparent, feigned ignorance as the elder was mesmerised. Santa was charming her socks off, in much the same way as mangy, disease-ridden strays seem to steal young children's hearts.

He told her to eat all her vegetables because bold children who didn't eat all their vegetables wound up in hospital. My jaw dropped another inch. She promised to eat up, and she has kept her promise. If I had known that all my parenting problems could be solved by shabby, bloodshot, older men, I would have spent more time drinking cider by the canal and less worrying about nutrition and intellectual stimulation.

The younger clung on to my neck in a death-grip throughout as they were handed gifts and we posed for photos. We paid our €6 per present and €10 for a picture, and went on our way. Both kids beaming with their pieces of tat, probably manufactured by their contemporaries in the Far East.