Santa’s Journal (Entry 9) – May 25 2013

No stress today. No phone calls, no bullshit. That was my vow. Well, Margaret commanded it because of my heart, actually. Ordered me to take it easy, and have a day of peace.

And I was largely successful. The most excitement came this morning as I was dozing in my armchair, when I thought I heard something coming from the snow dunes. What can I say: it’s a thrilling existence. Hell of a racket, though. It sounded like something was shaking the ground like it was a shag-pile rug, and scattering the snow like debris. Did I hear it? I think we’ve established that I’m getting old, and every sensory organ is packing up one at a time for the old folks’ home, so maybe I didn’t. Besides, when I heard this noise – that may or may not have been of phantom origin – I was still straddling the gulf between Sandman and Snowman, Barbados and Lapland, asleep and awake, so I wasn’t even in possession of the sound, deductive powers of Eamonn Holmes, never mind Sherlock Holmes. I thought maybe Margaret had dropped another tray of mince pies in the kitchen. She hadn’t. She suggested that my own nightmarishly loud snoring had woken me up. It’s possible. My snores sound like a plane-load of panicked, parachuting pigs making an emergency landing onto a passing convoy of motorbikes, just as God squats over their faces and roars out a planet-chewing fart.

Conditions were pleasant in the living room this morning, though, I can tell you. The fire was roaring and spitting by my side. Lovely, warm and stress-free. Screw excitement: there’s nothing quite like dozing off in your favourite chair in-front of your favourite hot fire, the newspaper crumpled on your lap and your slippers clinging to your feet like two tufts of toasty cloud.

Well, unless it’s that fantasy of mine where a naked, voluptuous model on a reclining chair awaits my descent down the chimney, legs akimbo, a cigarette dangling seductively from her ruby-red lips, greeting me in husky tones with the words: ‘So, Santa, let’s see if I can help you empty that bulging sack of yours.’

The fantasy always hovers in the air above my fire-toasted armchair, waiting for me to sit down and slip it on like a virtual reality sex helmet. Hey, I may play the part of Santa, but I’m still a man, right? I’m Frank McGarry: as red-blooded as I am red-jacketed.

It’s just a shame that Margaret’s idea of sex these days is extra clotted cream on our scones. There’s a euphemism in there somewhere, I’m sure.

‘Aw, look at you,’ Margaret’ll say as she catches me daydreaming (she thinks I’m daydreaming!), and spots the beaming grin plastered across my  features. ‘What’s making you so happy, my love?’

‘I’m just thinking…’ I’d purr, ‘…of the happiness I bring… to the children of the world.’

As I mentioned at the beginning of this entry, my vow to remain cocooned in peace was only largely successful. I can always count on my bosses at Coca Cola to get my heart beating like the samba. I waited until Margaret was at the shop, and then tried phoning the bastards multiple times to discuss this Dwerg Neuken situation and how they’re treating the elves, and to vent a little of my anger (nobody calls me Mickey Mouse and gets away with it!), but if the phone wasn’t just ringing out, I was being assured by some automated arsehole that ‘my call was very important.’ So important that they completely ignored it about eighty-five times. A day of reckoning is upon them, let me assure you of that…

Santa’s Journal (Entry 5) – May 16 2013

Drinking’s a young man’s game. I still feel a little out of sorts after Gundal’s birthday bash. My neural pathways are like never-ending corridors in a vast hospital; thoughts staggering down them like heavily-medicated mental patients with their dressing gowns open. I keep finding clues to my drunken behaviour. Trying to remember the other night is like piecing together a jigsaw made out of fog. Maybe some things are better not knowing. Like how the Jesus from Glasgow’s George Square nativity scene ended up in my bathroom. In May. How in the name of Hell’s bum whiskers did I manage that?

I might have a bit of magic at my disposal, but I thank all that’s good that time travel isn’t among my talents. Think how much worse it would have been if I’d managed to snatch the actual baby Jesus. I guess that’s why Doc and Marty McFly don’t get pished up before they hammer the DeLorean up to 88. I dread to think what Marty would have done to his mum if he’d downed a few bottles of vodka on the way to that dance. Anyway, I’ve wandered off the point a little. It serves a purpose, though. Nonsense talk about time travelling incest is distracting me from the fact that I can hear my heartbeat through my fingers. I’m even sure I can smell my blood, and it smells like Jack Daniels on burnt toast. Blasted bloody hangover! Margaret says I should clamp the reindeers before I start drinking. Or stop drinking. A novel idea. Perhaps I’ll consider it.

It might improve staff relations. Doritch, my most reliable elf, had to fly back to Greenland with Rudolph to pick up the elves I’d left behind. Apparently I kidnapped them. That’s a strong word. I’d like to think I invited them on an adventure against their own will. They weren’t too happy, the boring little buggers, but I’ve given the five of them a week off work, plus a bonus, so all’s fair in rum and war. On the home-front, the conversational cold war between me and Margaret finally has ceased, and relations have warmed. I’ve graduated from being a loutish brute to a lovable rogue again.

My friend Ronald phoned today. He’s flying out next week for a visit. We used to have a wild old time back in the day. We would’ve made Gundal’s party look like an Amish disco. Seems like we’re both slowing down. Age has done it to me, a new-found sensibility has done it for him. Was talking to him about my desire to retire, and he thinks it’s a good plan and I should really push it with Coca Cola. He said we can talk about it when he arrives. I’m looking forward to that. Haven’t seen him in years. Last time I saw him he was a natural fluorescent red. Now I gather he dyes it. Ah, well. I just hope he doesn’t bring with him that drippy friend of his; always gabbing on about this stamp collection and the mating behaviour of woodland insects. I can’t stand the Hamburglar.