Copyright © 2018 Ben Hoare
[/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”3.0.74″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”]Once upon a time there was an old man. You might have heard of him. His name was Father Christmas.
Every year, on Christmas Eve, he packed up his sleigh, said ‘tally-ho’ to his eight reindeer, and set off on a trip around the world. He visited every child’s home in the world, popped down the chimney (if there was one) or squeezed through the letterbox (if there wasn’t) – with the help of a bit of magic, of course. He quickly filled the children’s stockings with presents, sprinkled a bit of magic stuff called ‘Christmas cheer’ in the air, to help things go well on Christmas day, and then went on with his journey.
But before he shot back up the chimney (if there was one) or squeezed back out through the letterbox (if there wasn’t), there was one more tradition that Father Christmas always kept. Many boys and girls around the world, encouraged by their parents to be grateful to Father Christmas for his extreme act of generosity, got into the habit of leaving out a plate. On the plate was a mince pie for Father Christmas and, often, a carrot for his reindeer. They would sometimes also leave a small glass of something nice to drink. Sometimes they left milk, sometimes sherry. But it was the whisky that Father Christmas liked best. Anyway, whatever they had left, he would eat and drink before getting on his way.
This all sounds very merry, doesn’t it? But there was one problem, which I will now explain to you. Do you know how many children there are in the world? Do you think it is hundreds, or thousands, or millions? Well, it is a lot more than that. There are, in fact, almost two billion children in the world. I’d like to let you think about that for a while. With the help of a bit of Christmas magic, it is just about possible to visit two billion homes in one night. However, eating two billion mince pies in one evening is bound to have some consequences. The reindeer were fine – their two billion carrots were shared amongst the eight of them, meaning only 250 million carrots per reindeer. And carrots are very good for you: amongst other things, they help you see in the dark – which helps, when you are pulling a sleigh around the world on Christmas Eve. They also help prevent heart attacks and reduce the signs of premature ageing – again, a good thing for reindeer with a stressful job to do.
But two billion mince pies? All that mincemeat, sugar and pastry is bound to have an effect on a man. Over the years Father Christmas became – to put it nicely – plump. At first he didn’t really mind, but then he heard the songs people were singing about him, and the poems they were saying. One poem presented him as ‘a round chubby man’. Another described his ‘little round belly’, and likened it to a ‘bowl full of jelly.’ And Father Christmas counted at least three songs that depicted him getting stuck in the chimney. ‘I’d understand if they were talking about the letterbox,’ he complained. ‘That really is a squeeze. But I’ve never had problems with chimneys!’
Because of these hurtful songs and poems, and because he did wonder if, perhaps, he was getting a little unhealthy, Father Christmas decided to go on a diet and get fit. Throughout the year, he went off sugary foods altogether. Mrs Christmas, his wife, was banned from making him any nice treats, and he ate mainly carrot soup, which he made from the leftover carrots from Christmas Eve. He also did a daily star-jump routine out in the snow.
As the year went by, there was a marked change in Father Christmas, and, by the time he came to load his sleigh on Christmas Eve, nobody in the world would have described him as chubby.
As the reindeer soared through the sky, pulling their slightly lighter load, Father Christmas had never felt better. He felt as though he had more energy than ever before. ‘I could do this two nights in a row,’ he thought to himself. ‘I could give presents to ten billion children!’
But there was one thing he hadn’t counted on. Arriving at the first home on his itinerary, he slid gracefully down the chimney (‘No chance of getting stuck this year!’). There, by the fireplace, was a glass of sherry, a carrot, and a delicious-looking mince pie. ‘I think it might be home-made,’ he thought, breathing in and smelling baking in the air. He diligently filled the stockings and sprinkled his Christmas cheer, but he could not stop thinking about that mince pie. ‘It would be wrong to leave it here,’ he thought. ‘The children might think I’m ungrateful.’ He found the sherry easy to resist, so he carefully tipped it down the kitchen sink before returning the glass to the fireplace. Then, taking the carrot in one hand and the mince pie in the other, he swiftly scaled the chimney again and was on his way.
At each home he visited, Father Christmas found a delicious-looking mince pie. ‘Is it me or are mince pies getting nicer-looking?’ he said to himself. At each home he visited, he resisted the milk, or sherry, or whatever drink it was that had been left for him, but took the carrot and the mince pie, until eventually his sleigh was piled up on one side with presents, and on the other with enticing treats.
Father Christmas was starting to feel uneasy about all the mince pies he had collected. Also, the sleigh wasn’t getting much lighter as the reindeer pulled it around the world and Father Christmas dropped off the presents. Surely the extra weight was slowing them down!
Eventually, arriving at a house in Scotland, Father Christmas saw a drink that he found hard to resist – whisky. Scotland is the home of whisky, and Father Christmas had no doubt that the small glass that had been left out for him would contain the finest variety of whisky you could imagine. ‘What’s the harm in one glass?’ he asked himself, and downed it in one. It gave him fire in his belly, and he went on his way.
But, in Scotland, there were many glasses of whisky waiting for him. Having had one, Father Christmas now found it hard to resist, so he swiftly filled his empty stomach with the delicious drink. As he had not eaten as much as he was used to, the whisky went to his head, and Father Christmas started to feel more than a little tipsy. His ‘tally-hos’ were a bit louder than normal, and he began sliding a little less gracefully down each chimney he came to.
Finally, about halfway through his journey around the world, Father Christmas stopped his sleigh on a rooftop and looked back at all the mince pies piled up behind him. The drink had made him feel light-headed, and he was starving hungry.
‘That’s enough,’ he said finally. ‘I’m going to eat them.’ So he sat on that rooftop and ate every single mince pie – around one billion of them. He started slowly, but gradually sped up so that the crumbs were flying from his mouth as he gobbled up the pies. The first few were delicious, but they soon lost their appeal. However, once he had started, Father Christmas found that he couldn’t stop. He was starting to feel sick, and the mince pies no longer tasted delicious, yet he carried on until there was not a single crumb left.
He looked down at the street below him. The family whose roof he was sitting on had made a lovely Christmas display in their front garden. There were twinkling stars, colourful Christmas trees and glowing figures in his likeness. The effect of all the whisky and all the mince pies was such that Father Christmas found the scene before him very garish. Suddenly, the whole idea of Christmas made him feel utterly sick – and, before he knew it, he was actually being sick over the edge of the roof and onto the display below.
Father Christmas felt ashamed of himself. ‘I am never doing this again,’ he said to himself. He felt as though he had let down every child in the world.
He finished his rounds, less merrily than ever before. His head throbbed and his stomach ached, and he could not stop thinking of the family whose Christmas display he had ruined.
When he got home, he went to bed, but he slept fitfully – his stomach was groaning and he kept getting cramp and having to get up to walk around the room. When he woke up, he felt as though he had hardly slept.
When the New Year arrived, and all the children in the world were beginning to forget about Christmas for another year, Father Christmas made himself a very important New Year’s resolution. He resolved that he would never again try to resist the mince pies that the children had lovingly, and gratefully, left out for him. He would spend all year trying to get fit, then at Christmas he would eat as much as necessary. But he would do it gradually, throughout the night, instead of doing it in one big whisky-fuelled binge. And he would never, ever again be sick on somebody’s Christmas display.
And that is exactly what Father Christmas does to this day. He spends the year exercising and eating healthily so that he is ready for Christmas. Then, on Christmas Eve, he packs up his sleigh, says ‘tally-ho’ to his eight reindeer, and sets off on his trip around the world, eating mince pies and drinking milk, sherry, whisky and mulled wine as he goes. He is never able to retain his thin, healthy physique beyond Christmas – but, despite what the songs say, he has never been stuck in a chimney, and he has never failed to disappoint any of the two billion children in the world, who wake up on Christmas morning to see what he has left behind in their stockings. Their happy smiles and laughs are what keep him going. The fact that he returns home every year feeling a little sick, and the fact that he will always, until the end of time, be described in songs and poems as ‘chubby’ and ‘plump’, are a small price to pay for that happiness.
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