A warning: what follows features conjecture as to the identity of a certain bearded north pole resident. If you, or anyone in your household, remains devoutly attached to said individual, this might not be an article for them.
With that out of the way, let me tell you where you find me; slumped and groggy at my desk, putting the finishing touches to the letters from Santa I write each year to my nieces and nephews (hereafter referred to as niblings).
This is my 10th year writing them. When I started, I had no kids myself, and eight niblings. I now have 18 of the latter, and two kids of my own. Moreover, back in 2014, I was temping in a dead-end office job with very little outlet for creativity, and the letters provided a life-saving salve to the drudge of spreadsheets and team meetings. Now, I sit resplendent within the literary and media elite – in the past six years alone, two whole people have stopped me in the street to say hello – so this annual mission finds me sapped of energy and face-to-face with a much more demanding audience.
Luckily, they’re my favourite bit of writing I do each year. For one thing, they’ve established a tradition of me receiving letters to Santa from my favourite people. Age and distance means I see these kids less and less, so it’s great to see what they’ve been up to all year, to learn that they’ve been mostly good, and discern from their list of presents what’s going on in their psyches. That and the knowledge that ripped denim flares are back in fashion – who knew?
Receiving these also makes Santa a surprisingly easy character to perform. His pleasingly forgetful, scatty manner pairs excellently with my mental state each December. This year, he writes, it’s gotten so cold that the elves’ words freeze in their mouths and have to be heated over a stove for their conversation to be audible. He gives updates on the status of their requested presents, some snazzy stickers and a cutaway diagram of Santa’s Arctic Fortress, which may or may not be based on the Times’s infamously speculative 2001 diagram of Osama bin Laden’s Tora Bora terror base. It wouldn’t be a useful bit of children’s literature, without something for their cynical, blackhearted parents.
There is, of course, a melancholy air to writing these, year on year. Within the 20 kids to whom these letters are addressed, I would class seven as true believers, and five as too young to know. The others are those who’ve, shall we say, fallen off the Santa wagon (sleigh?) and no longer write their letters with the same conviction.
Gone are the gushing, personalised letters to St Nick, replaced now by starkly functional gift itineraries, penned with the dead-eyed clarity of an expenses invoice. Their numbers will only increase as the years go on, but I don’t dwell on it. I’m too busy making sure I don’t forget anyone. I’ve made a list here somewhere, I’m off to check it twice.
Did Ye Hear Mammy Died? by Séamas O’Reilly is out now (Little, Brown, £16.99). Buy a copy from guardianbookshop at £14.78
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