Dear Santa......

Dear Santa,

Are you the good guy we think you are?

 Sure, Christmas is great and all that - but are you really the benevolent character we all take you for? You certainly have some incredible housebreaking skills and all this do-goodery is a great cover story for some good old-fashioned burglary or a multitude of other nefarious activities. Your P.R. skills are also certainly up there with the best considering we spend so much time and effort these days telling our children to avoid strangers except in safe environments like school. Heck we’ve even turned our schools into virtual mini-prisons to keep out unsafe adults – an example of creating anxiety in our kids where there is almost no risk - yet we happily tell them that you will come into their bedrooms at night and leave them presents – if they’ve been good. We even tell them not to be afraid if they wake up hearing someone in their room and that they should just pretend to be asleep and not to look at you { that’ll work very heavily in your favour in any potential ID parade you clever old rascal }

And that disguise? Genius! You’ve made a disguise out of the most identifiable and high visibility clothing you could possibly wear, making sure that even CCTV Camera’s won’t be able to pick out any identifying personal features. With all that bulky clothing you could be anything from the most obese burglar in history to a complete anorexic with access to industrial quantities of padding. You’re supposed to be old but you might not be – you certainly aren’t as old as the stories suggest. What an incredible feat! Way to go sunshine!

 

There are some weak points in your strategy though, which I’m sure you must be aware of; all those mince pies and sherry have to slow you down a bit { and make me veer towards ‘the most obese burglar in history’ theory } and the getaway vehicle not only isn’t the fastest option you could have come up with but is also stand out conspicuous in all but the most rural areas. Despite this, probably due to the laxity of our police and the ineptitude of air traffic control staff over the holiday period, you’ve managed consistently to evade detection. Yes we have all seen the photos of Santa being given a parking ticket or the videos on ‘Youtube’ but these aren’t you are they? This is yet another genius stroke in the master-plan. You’ve generated – spawned even – a whole slew of impersonators with which to confuse and convince society that it’s all a fantasy. Absolute bloomin’ genius mate. Well done indeed.

Yes, you’ve created a cover story perfect for the most gullible or sentimental elements of our society, built it up over a significant period of time { clearly a master of planning and organising } and woven it around the most fantastical garb that hides you in plain sight. Your transport appears ridiculous but evades the most elaborate detection systems modern technology can produce. You telegraph the time of your crime yet create a perfect alibi by ensuring multitudes of lookalikes may be culpable – some of them who don’t even get dressed up because they’re in their own homes – and at the appointed hour you do your stuff and apparently disasppear like you’ve just gone up the chimney.

Or is the there an even more elusive side to the story? Are you simply an extra savvy entrepreneur who's moved to the Arctic Circle because of tax breaks, lower environmental standards and an abundance of cheap elf labour?

Whatever the truth I'm still waiting for the flamethrower I've been asking for for the last three years. This year Santa, please – get your act in order. There are so many places I'm planning to visit with my new toy.

See you later.

Listening to: