Father Christmas? Santa Claus?

The fat jolly man in red? Or perhaps a skinny one?

There have been suggestions here that we should no longer celebrate Christmas with an "obese, jolly Santa" but rather a skinny Santa.  Indeed there have even been suggestions that we do away with Santa Claus altogether.

I stopped believing in "Father Christmas" or "Santa" when I was three. That was the year I had one of those presents that last a lifetime in the memories of childhood. I wanted what I called a "train toy set". I was in love with trains. (I still like trains.) 

As young children do, I had informed my parents of my wishes. Did I want anything else? No, not really. I had also confided my hope in Grandpa, my paternal grandfather.  I had told him as we had waited for the train to take me and Grandma into the city. He was going to pick us up later in the day and I was pretending he was going to drive the train to do it.

So Grandpa knew I wanted a train set. My parents knew I wanted a train set. It is quite possible that everyone I knew also knew.

Some little time later there was another trip into the city. This time it was with Mum and "Nana" - her mother. Nana liked things like the Magic Cave which housed Santa Claus and the elves. She liked to get our photographs taken. "You can tell him what you want for Christmas and he might bring it if you are very good, "she told me. 

I don't think I said anything to Nana. I also know that I did not say a word to "Santa" apart from being polite. I didn't like him in the least but a stern warning from my mother not to upset her mother was enough to make me behave. I was quite determined however that I would not tell him anything. 

And on Christmas morning I was given the longed for train set, the little Hornby clockwork train set with the green engine and the rails which could be set up in two ways. I sat under the big dining room table at my paternal grandparents' home and I read the instructions to my father (thus proving to my family that I could actually read far more than just the few words they thought I could recognise). We set the rails up and Grandpa showed me how to wind the mechanism.We set the train running around the track. It stopped in the little place where I lived and we all got on and arrived in time for Christmas lunch. I played with it for a very long time - until my mother gave it away some years later.

But I can remember Nana and Papa coming later that afternoon. "Oh, lucky girl. Is that what you asked Santa to bring you?"

"No, I told Grandpa."  And I knew quite definitely at that moment that Santa was just an idea. I hadn't told that person at the Magic Cave anything at all. He had no way of knowing. Grandpa knew.