Claus for concern pic: Kevin Dooley via Flickr
It's supposed to be magical. Children waiting for the kindly, bearded chap to deliver their heart's desire into an old sock on Christmas Eve. Then they ooh and aah about how lucky they are and play peacefully until it's time for the sprouts...
And for the most part it is (except the sprouts)(or the playing nicely). Christmas is a wonderful time right from the premature appearance of tinsel in the shops, to reacquainting with the hand-made baubles from the loft and the tea-towel donning for the nativity. All of it.
Boy Three is five years old - arguably the best years for the full-effect of festive fantasy. He's old enough to join the confusing bits together and young enough to believe in it all. Or so we'd hoped. Cliched but true - most of the point of this time of year is the look on their tiny awe-struck upturned-faces.
Only at the end of last year he asked me whether Santa was real. "Of course," I replied outraged and instantly forgetting my promise to tell my kids the truth where ever possible.
Part of the blame for his doubt may well lie with his big brothers' careless talk but some, must, I'm sure, be with Father Christmas himself. Or should I say themselves.
It used to be that a trip to Santa's Grotto was a gigantic treat reserved for the fortunate few. Or so it seemed to me. There certainly were far fewer chances to queue up to sit on the big fella's knee while you whispered your secret desires.
These days every department store, community fayre, country park and garden center plays host to Father Christmas and his elfin entourage. It becomes increasingly difficult to steer a curious child - especially one who is learning to read - away from a high-volume discussion about why it's not possible to see Him this time.
If you think about the progress technology has made between my childhood and Boy Three's it make's it even worse. I was older than he is now before I realised the Thunderbirds were actually puppets.
Nowadays what was once miraculous is now mundane - and that's what children expect. Their toys have more special effects now than the movies we grew up with.
How, then, do we begin to expect bright and observant youngsters to believe that the fat chap in an evidently fake beard is the actual FC himself. And equally, once they've clocked that at the same time he's at the school fete, the shopping center and pretty much everywhere else we might visit, how are they expected to sort that out?
It's enough of a push to explain deliveries to every child in the world on one night by one person but, at least, he has magical reindeer.
If the idea is to keep our children as innocent and credulous for as long as possible, then we need to clamp down on this army of imposter Santas. Their beards and bellies must be banned along with the rest of the badly executed hokum.
Maybe it's time to take a leaf out of Disney's book. On every park there's only ever one Micky at large at a time. If we must, then license Santa so there's only one every 20 miles and, even then, only if they've passed the plausibility test.
Ho ho ho!
