Letters to Santa

Tags

ADD, Aloha shirt, Beach Boys, Caligula, Chi Rho, Come Dine with Me, Father Christmas, Greenland Fulfilment Centre, Harry Styles, Location, One Direction, Paint balling, Red Letter Day, Richard Dawkins, Salisbury Plain, Schnautzer, Tinkerbelle, Victoria's Secret, zombie make-up

A previous Year’s updated post!

Tristram, having appeared on two television programmes in recent months- ie/

Come Dine With Me and Location, Location, Location, was regarded as a minor

culinary and real estate celebrity and therefore was approached by the local

town charities, to see if he would accept the role of Father Christmas at the

late night shopping evening.  They had asked Harry Styles from One Direction

to be compere, but regrettably he was otherwise engaged.  Clammie had

agreed to be Santa’s fairy as she had an up-to-date DBS check and was one

of the few mums who could pneumatically squeeze into the Tinkerbelle

costume.

More grotty than grotto! her rather unkind daughter had remarked.  I

don’t think you’ll be finding ANY member of One Direction in your stocking

this Christmas, or any other year, even though they have been known to

go for the older woman!

Right!  The brat had just unknowingly forfeited the Victoria’s Secret stuff

her mother had planned to buy her.

Some of Tristram’s duties involved emptying the town Lapland post box

and arranging the re-direction of the mail to the PO department that dealt

with applications to Greenland’s Fulfilment Centre.  He had to read them in

order to decipher the return addresses and he showed me some of the

finest epistles deposited therein:

1) Dear Father Xmas,

As one who is a member of the ‘kids from one to ninety two’ bracket,

may I register a little festive plea?

As a long term fan of The Beach Boys, I would very much like an

Aloha shirt- Medium size. Actually, the folks over there can be

quite large, so maybe a ‘Small’ would do?

In spite of my nickname- Caligula- I can assure you that

J’etais sage pendant l’annee 2014. 

Why am I falling into the Gallic medium?

Many thanks and The Peace of the Lord be With You,

Nigel Milford-Haven

Form Teacher

St Birinus Middle School etc

PS- The use of ‘X’ in Xmas in no way indicates any agnostic

position.

(Chi Rho)

 

2) Dear Santa,

Please may I have a taser gun so that I can zap the next boy who calls

me Ginger Minger? I do hope that Rudolph has recovered from the

mental trauma of being called names and marginalised at games.

Bullying isn’t nice, I can tell you.  I’m glad that you picked him out to

be special, even though his fur is a teeny bit auburn.  It sends out

the right message.

Love,

Ferdy xx

Nutwood Cottage

Suttonford  etc

3) Dear Santa Claws (sic),

Please may we remind you that we would prefer not to have joint prezzies?

The tandem you left us last year is still in Dad’s observatory.

On the 24^th we will not set our buglar (sic) alarm, so don’t worry about coming

in.  The chimney has been swept, so you shouldn’t get too dirty.  If you are

sooty, please could you be careful of Mum’s cream carpet in the sitting room,

as she goes ballistic if anyone steps on it with outdoor shoes or boots.

We will leave a carrot out, as Mum doesn’t believe in suet, so mince pies

are off.

Have a good one!

Castor & Pollux.

The address wasn’t vital on this one as there was only one set of twins in

the town who answered to such stellar appellations.

4) Dear Father Christmas,

I can’t remember what it is that I really, really want, but zombie make-up

would do for my stocking.  You usually get it about right, but I think The

Memory Game last year didn’t do me much good, I’m afraid. Or did you give

that to Ming?  I can’t remember.  Maybe it was the year before?

Anyway-cheers!

Bill.

(There was no address on this one, but Tristram remembered that Carrie’s

son had something like ADD.)

5)

Dear Santa,

I don’t really believe in you, but I might as well hedge my bets.

I have been reasonably well-behaved this term.  Well, it is all

relative, isn’t it?

In all probability, I think I would like Richard Dawkins’ new book

for children- Faith and Fairy Tales.

I enjoyed my Apocalyptic experience on Salisbury Plain, but as

I was done out of a paint balling session, could Juniper- my sister

and I- have vouchers for a Red Letter Day involving anything

violent with tanks and weapons?

Thank You – even if you are only my dad.

John etc

6) Dear Santa,

I don’t need anything this year.  Please just make a donation to Curs

in Crisis. Maybe the pugs could go on a driving course, like that giant

Schnautzer cross I saw online?  Their legs are a little short, though.

I’ll leave it up to you.  I think they’d like it, though, as they often ride

on my scooter, but their Highway Code isn’t up to much.

Love,

Edward xx

(Such selflessness brought tears to Tristram and Clammie’s eyes.)

She made Tristram a cup oftea when they returned home with the

festive correspondence and warmed up a mince pie for him.

However, she eschewed one herself, as the fairy costume was a

little tight round the bust.  Tinkerbelle had obviously not  been a

36C.

Apocalypse Now!

Tags

Apocalypse, Birmingham Crater, Crouching Tiger ; Hidden Dragon, Dan Snow, Derren Brown, Felix Baumgartner, Gregorian Calendar, Guy Fawkes, Highland Spring, paintballing, parkour, Pippa Middleton, Salisbury Plain, Yves Klein

Monday morning and so I sidled into Divas’ Deli and found Carrie there buying the Pippa Middleton book: Celebrate.

Thought this would be ideal for Clammie’s Chrissie prezzy, she beamed.

Was somewhat annoyed as I had been considering it for the very same recipient.  Still, if I buy one and very carefully open the pages, but don’t bend the spine, maybe I can get away with off-loading it on someone else, once I have noted down any useful tips on my Tablet. Didn’t say anything, but hinted that I wouldn’t mind finding it in my stocking, in addition to Dan Snow.

Carrie is over the moon that the awful Juniper is not going to be going to Clammie and Tristram’s Guy Fawkes party.  Her horrible little brother John is also not being invited.  Juniper’s behaviour at Tiger-Lily’s sleepover was reprehensible enough and none of us wants our children to mix with such delinquents.  I hasten to add that it is nothing to do with Juniper’s gender fluidity issues; it is just her utter self-gratification and her brother’s bullying tendencies that have upset us all.

Carrie divulged the reason for this joyous news: apparently Juniper is plastered- not in the sense that she was at the sleepover, however. No, she is in plaster with a broken arm.  She is crazy.  She jumped off the Art block roof.  Clammie’s daughter, Scheherezade, witnessed the whole event, or should I say, happening?  And she is not a girl to make up stories.

Juniper has been obsessed by Felix Baumgartner’s leap from 128,000 feet.  At her School for the Academically-Gifted they believe in a cross-curricular integrated approach to learning and so everything recently has been based on leaps: leaps of faith, Kiekegaard’s Semantic Leap, leap years and the Gregorian Calendar, French urban vocabulary, such as traceur/ traceuse etc.  Yves Klein’s Jumping into the Void was studied in Art History and in PE they learned about the training skills associated with parkour, that weird sport which owes its origins to military obstacle course training. It resembles some of the moves in Crouching Tiger; Hidden Dragon. One has to travel from A-B in as short a distance as possible and without one’s feet touching the ground. (In my childhood this was when a parent grabbed you by the scruff of the neck and marched you off to bed.  But I digress.)

Anyway, Juniper had been unusually attentive in the Art History lesson and afterwards she climbed onto the roof and shouted to some girls who were engaged in some artistic activity round the back of the building to capture her launch moment on their mobiles.  She threw down a scrap of cartridge paper which bore her bowdlerised mission statements, to wit:

You have to realise the impregnation of space by your own sensibility

and

Neither missiles nor rockets nor sputniks will render man- nor woman- the conquistadors of space.

The girls didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, but a couple of them managed to take a digital image of her as she jumped.  Scheherezade said she was shouting:

I’m not falling; I’m rising!

And then? I asked.

And then she went splat on the roof of Clammie’s 4×4, which had been parked there as Clammie had made an appointment to see the art teacher about Scheherezade’s installation.  There was a crater the size of Birmingham on the roof.  Cosmo said it was more like a black hole in his current account to cover his insurance excess and to have the bodywork restored.

Birmingham? I asked, incredulous.

No, there really is a lunar crater called that, she stressed.  Cosmo told me once when he was showing me round his observatory.

Beats etchings, I muttered.

Anyway, she continued, ignoring my sarcasm,  Juniper is now asking everyone to sign her plaster cast and she is going to submit it for her Art History Practical. She’ll probably get an A*.  It’s so annoying. 

So, it’s cost them an arm and a leg, I said, without thinking.

Just an arm, Carrie said, laughing and paying for the book.

And Juniper’s nasty little brother, John, isn’t coming to the party either?

No.  Their mother has also been getting fed up with their behaviour and so she phoned Derren Brown and arranged a personal mini-Apocalypse for them.  It’s a set-up where they are being driven to Salisbury Plain, thinking they are going to paint-balling, and then some tanks emerge and block the road and there is a mock-up of a meteor strike.  By the end of two days they will have been introduced to the concept of altruism as they have to share a bottle of Highland Spring and a bag of Kettle Chips, or starve.

Wow! That’s amazing! I exclaimed. I wonder if any other mothers would be interested in signing up their sproglets?

Apparently Derren Brown has been inundated by requests and can’t personally hypnotise or deal with them all, so he is hiring out Parent Packs of tanks, flame throwers and DIY nstructions.

Well, that should solve the problem of bored teenagers in the school holidays, I remarked, a shade too eagerly, perhaps.

Precisely, said Carrie.  We are sending for our packs tomorrow before they run out.