Rod Liddle’s twelve terrors of Christmas

1. Santa – the Man

Loose fitting but matted nylon beard, fake optical twinkle, cheap red suit. The distinct whiff of Jack Daniels and ammonia when you close. If he’s such a big shot, why is he drawing unemployment benefit for eleven months of the year? Something scary and offkey about him. And there are good reasons why the children are no longer allowed to sit in his lap for a cuddle.

2. Santa – the Concept

Why would anyone half way normal want to live at the North Pole on a bunch of rapidly melting ice floes? Or stay up all night delivering presents to children of doubtful deservingness. There is a point where altruism becomes sick. Or else a sinister cover up for an international scam. Perhaps something to do with the Russians. A man of no plausible address and with no apparent source for his obvious wealth comes down your chimney after midnight. Are we not right to be alarmed and averse?

3. Santa’s Little Helpers.

Again, what is really going on here? Why do these supposed elves submit to sweatshop conditions in what must be one of the gloomiest climates in the world – unless they’re getting something out of it at our expense. Underclass masochism one day, bloody rebellion the next. The rat-tat-tat of tiny hammers may be just the beginning.

4. Oh Tannenbaum!

Suppose it topples over under its weight of bomb shaped baubles? Suppose it harbours wood-borers which will migrate to the rafters? There is something ghastly about a tree – its look of many limbed paralysis, its shaggy and conscienceless aplomb – encountered in the open, let alone in the living room. At night you can hear it rustling and slurping water out of its bucket.

5. Reindeer

Nasty sharp hooves that cut through roof tiles like Stanley knives. Unstable flight patterns, totally undocumented entrance to our country, which we have taken back.