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Child questioning authenticity of garden centre Santa

A CHILD has ruined her family’s magical Christmas trip by carrying out a detailed analysis of the texture of Santa’s beard.

Grace Wood-Morris also asked probing questions about why Santa’s ginger eyebrows didn’t match his white facial hair, and why the elves had such a strong resemblance to pissed-off, overworked retail assistants.

Grace’s mum Sarah said: “Most kids just look at the twinkly lights and fat old man and are happy. However, Grace went full Miss Marple and started interrogating him about why the world’s busiest present deliverer would waste four hours hanging around in a Dobbies in Leicester.

“She didn’t bother saying what she wanted for Christmas, but got on with asking him exactly which countries he flew over to get here from the North Pole, like a particularly dogged police detective. She even asked her dad to take notes on his phone when she thought he was being inconsistent.

“However, the upside is that she’s realised he isn’t real. This means we won’t have to make elaborate excuses for why Santa couldn’t get the latest Paw Patrol toy and can just tell her it was sold out at Argos.”

A minimalist tree, and other middle class ways to suck the joy from Christmas

WANT to have a ‘sophisticated’ and therefore utterly joyless middle class Christmas? Try these tips.

Traditional advent calendar

Just because something’s traditional, it’s not necessarily good. Opening a tiny cardboard flap to reveal an even tinier depiction of a Judean shepherd looking at a star or similar nonsense is a dreadful way to start your day. Children expect to start every day in December with some chocolate, so you can piss off with your tasteful pictures.

A minimalist Christmas tree

Instead of a normal, tacky, tinsel and fairy light-covered tree, you spent close to a grand importing a spruce from Norway that’s decorated with 10 plain glass baubles and some Aga-dried blood orange slices strung on natural jute twine. Congratulations, all your children now hate you.

Plain parcel paper

Christmas is mainly for kids, and they like their presents wrapped in the cheapest, gaudiest paper possible because it looks exciting under the tree. They don’t care if you’ve spent £11 a roll on tasteful, high-quality brown parcel paper and hand-tied the luxury velvet ribbons yourself. They’ll rip it off without a second thought, which is exactly what it deserves.

Homemade gifts

Now your kids are old enough, you’ve suggested homemade presents rather than ‘wasting money’ on things they actually want. Unfortunately Christmas is all about consumerism, and you’ll learn your lesson when you see the disappointment on their faces as they unwrap a poorly knitted scarf and ask when you’re going to learn how to make a PS5.

Choosing your turkey on a farm

In your ruthless quest to feel morally superior to everyone around you, you decide to ethically source your turkey and drive your family to an organic, free-range turkey farm in the Cotswolds to choose one. There’s nothing more festive than serving up the roasted body of an animal your kids picked out because it was cute and telling them to eat it.

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