An Unlikely Santa

I’m going to be Santa at the infant school on Friday morning. Can you imagine a less likely Santa?

I haven’t tried on the Santa suit yet – it’s sitting behind me in a zipped bag. I wonder how many pillows I will need to stuff the suit with to make myself look suitably rotund? I wonder how convincing the beard will look on somebody perhaps twenty years too young to really be playing Santa?

The reason for my call-up has been down to social distancing, safeguarding, and all manner of other rules that have caused all “normal” Santas to be excluded from the running. The first I knew was my other half “asking” me last week – only she wasn’t really “asking” me at all.

Apparently I have to be asleep in the corner of the school hall as the children file in for choir practice – and as tradition dictates, they will wake me up by singing a Christmas carol. I then have to blink my eyes, and be confused about what’s going on for a few moments before addressing the children. I better learn what I’m supposed to say tomorrow.

My youngest daughter suspects that putting the Santa suit on will have a similar affect to the movie “The Santa Claus” – and that my beard will start growing instantaneously, and the suit will magically adjust to fit perfectly. I don’t even know the names of all the reindeer.