HO, HO, HO - WHAT'S SO FUNNY ABOUT AN OVERWEIGHT OLD MAN IN A WHITE BEARD?

Robert Cenedella

This the first year in a long time that no one’s invited me to be Father Christmas. I am relieved. The part never suited me. I hate dressing up. I lack geniality. I don’t laugh easily. I have a bad back and can’t carry a sack. I make children cry.

I recall reading about a Japanese department store that put a giant Father Christmas on its roof for Christmas but confused Father Christmas with Jesus. So they lit him up and crucified him. That - apart from the illuminated bit - is not a million miles from how I felt the last time I played Santa.

In the final analysis, it’s the sentimentality of Father Christmas I can’t stomach. Old men aren’t like that. All right - a few might be. But the few never tell the commoner story of the many, and happy Father Christmases don’t tell the true story of ageing. I saw the true story of ageing two days ago in the cafe on the fifth floor of a London shop, close to where I go to get my various ailments checked and receive the final diagnosis.

Depressing? Of course it’s depressing. I’m an overweight old man with a white beard.

This, anyway, is the truth that was revealed to me, first as I popped into the toilet and saw a demented old man trying to defecate into a urinal, and half an hour later, as I was drinking coffee, saw another old man fall asleep into a small tub of ice cream…

What follows is true to my original Substack promise to you, though I have sometimes forgotten it. I go Streetwalking and tell you what I see. I don’t, though, want to spoil anybody’s Christmas. I might not be Santa but I’m not Scrooge either. . .