What I learned at Santa School

00:00 06:04

Andrew Watts has narrated this article for you to listen to.

Whenever my son’s primary school ring up, they have, very sensibly, a calming form of words: ‘It’s the school here but don’t worry, there’s nothing wrong.’ It became clear, however, that Mrs Gribben had not thought through the rest of the conversation: ‘Our Father Christmas has dropped out, and we thought of you because, well…’

A few weeks later, I join a Santa refresher course organised by Ministry of Fun, a company which supplies Father Christmases (or Fathers Christmas?) to department stores such as Selfridges and Hamleys. As I walk into the London Transport Museum, a contract – the correct collective noun for a group of Clauses, I’m told – of two dozen Santas are settling down at desks for a PowerPoint presentation by Matt Grist, who is much less annoying than the managing director of a company called Ministry of Fun has any right to be.

He starts with a brief pep talk – ‘What we do is remind people of the real meaning of Christmas, the non-religious meaning of Christmas’ – and assures everyone that there is no right way to play the role: ‘Some people are silly Santas, full of Santa banter; others are just kind and caring. We’ve got to be real and magical.’

When I talk to Matt later, he points out different Santas: ‘They use their own real personality, just heightened and Santafied. That’s Santa Tim, he’s a clown in real life, so he’s very silly.’ Matt has worked with many of the Fathers Christmas for years, but it is still remarkable that he can tell them apart, as they all look exactly the same to me. This is intentional, Santa Doug tells me: he has to shave his own beard off every year to play Father Christmas, in order to preserve ‘a certain homogeneity of beard’.