Anti-Santa

Oh dear! I am not good at keeping this blog going. I have been thinking about a recent incident in which a 'Santa' lost his job; his offence, telling the truth to a child. A mother ushered her three children into his grotty grotto. After talking to all three he asked the two younger ones to leave him alone with the ten-year-old brother, then told him the truth about Father Christmas. The little boy passed on this news to his little sisters, whereon the mother had hysterics, called the management and succeeded in getting the poor man sacked. I wonder why there is this huge conspiracy to lie to children. It is not as if it were an ancient tradition. The whole business has been cooked up in the last hundred years. Christmas used to be the festival of the mother and babe, but it has been taken over by this male symbol of material abundance - an annual boost for the industrial economy. I think we should hand the 25th back to the Christians and celebrate Yule on the day of the solstice - without that old rogue in red.