Jonny McCambridge: Santa, the dancing elf and Shakin’ Stevens

There is something about the untrammelled optimism and sentimentality of it which appeals; perhaps because it is the same force which drives much of the content of this column.

Of course, not all Christmas music is the same. Handel’s Messiah is a world away from Shakin’ Stevens’ Merry Christmas Everyone, but I enjoy them both.

The music I am currently listening to, I do not enjoy. There is no discernible melody and the lyrics are largely indecipherable, other than the word ‘Christmas’ being bellowed over and over. Annoyingly the same song keeps being repeated on a loop. It has the unfortunate sound of music that was composed in this millennium.

It is also disturbingly loud.

‘This music is very loud,’ I say to my wife.

She says something in response, but I can’t hear it.

We are in a wooden cabin which is decorated with sparkling lights and tinsel.

There is also an elf dancing animatedly a few feet in front of where I am sitting.

I say elf, but she is human size and looks formidable enough that she could likely take me in a wrestling bout.

At the front of the room, several young children are dancing. Some others are standing awkwardly. My son is next to me. The elf is trying to persuade him to dance, but he remains defiantly seated.

The elf changes her tactic. She now decides it would be useful to try and persuade me to dance and is frantically beckoning me towards her.

‘No,’ I say, shaking my head.

‘If you dance, then he might dance too,’ she offers.

This statement is flawed in logic. It incorrectly assumes that my actions will have some bearing on those of my son. Moreover, it assumes that dancing is a preferential state to not dancing.

I have nothing against dancing. I have occasionally taken part in the activity in younger days. I understand it can be fun. But it has to be done because you feel a swelling in your heart that makes you want to do it. Dancing cannot and should not be a matter of compulsion. Not even by an elf.

I am entirely supportive of my son’s decision not to dance in the cabin. Indeed, I have reached the same conclusion. There is no force on earth that could persuade me to dance with this giant elf to the wretched seasonal music.

She moves closer to me, laughing and waving her arms.

‘Come on! Come on!’ she gasps with a red face.

‘No,’ I say, shaking my head.

‘It’s fun!’

‘No,’ I say, shaking my head.

Regrettably, this is a persistent elf. She takes the seat beside me and begins to bounce up and down on it while waving her arms and bizarrely exclaiming ‘Chair dance! Chair dance!’ over and over.

Deciding that my defence of saying no and shaking my head clearly isn’t working, I try a new approach and now begin to look in the opposite direction, pretending that I cannot see her and, indeed, that this is not really happening. Out of the corner of my eye I can see my wife laughing.

My unlikely saviour turns out to be Santa Claus.

The Christmas music stops and is replaced by the sound of Richard Strauss’ symphonic poem Also sprach Zarathustra. This is better known as the fanfare piece of music which features in the famous sunrise scene in Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Dry ice billows across the room and Santa Claus emerges from a chimney to the throb of the pounding timpani. He waves at the children.

I find this scene to be to be conceptually puzzling. I had always understood the situation of Santa coming down a chimney to be one that was determined by stealth. In order not to wake the children, it is generally not accompanied by bombastic overtures played out at full volume by a 64-piece orchestra.

On the other hand, Santa’s arrival seems to have distracted the dancing elf who has now left my side and is annoying somebody else, so I decide to let it go.

Soon, the Christmas music, and the dancing returns. Mercifully, my family is one of the first which is summoned to see Santa and we are led from the cabin.

As we wait in Santa’s workshop, I notice that my boy is a touch subdued. I know that he is shy, and I wonder if he has been spooked by the loud music and the dancing. I am hoping that what is supposed to be a magical experience will not be soured in his experience and memory.

We are led into Santa’s grotto where, in a socially distanced manner, we are separated from Father Christmas by a rope.

He begins to speak to my son. My son begins to speak to him. He tells Santa about the games that he is hoping to get for Christmas, about the books he likes to read and about how he came top of his class in a quiz the day before.

Occasionally, he casts a quick nervous glance at mummy or me, but mostly he speaks directly to the man with the red coat and the fake beard on the other side of the rope in a clear and steady voice.

He is given a wrapped present and then we are ushered from the room. As we leave, I hear Santa say to one of the elves, ‘What a lovely little boy’.

I realise that I need not have worried about my son being shy. When it came to the important moment, he was able to find his voice perfectly well.

As we go back outside, I can hear the loud Christmas song from the cabin playing once more. I think about how some parts of our experience today made more sense to me, and to my son, than others. It is just a matter of sorting the substance from the garnish.

An elf approaches us and tells us that we can go back into the cabin if we want to. My son, my wife and I exchange glances and politely decline.

We ask our son what he would like to do. He says he would like us to go to the café and have hot chocolate with marshmallows. So that is exactly what we do.

As we are warming our hands on the steaming mugs, the sound of Shakin’ Stevens fills the room.

Merry Christmas everyone.