‘Tis the season for youngsters to get some quality face time with Father Christmas — if they can still find him, that is.
For as long as anyone can remember, it’s been a Christmas tradition in Britain for children to have a department-store tête-à-tête with Santa Claus, out of earshot of Mom and Dad.
More often than not, wide-eyed youngsters meet the red-suited Saint Nick in a grotto, a purpose-built venue, richly decorated with model reindeer and artificial snow, where Santa can field every child’s gift wish.
But this season, a London promotions agency that is the nation’s premier supplier of what it calls ”Father Christmas lookalikes” senses change in the air — and not necessarily for the better.
Three years ago, the Ministry of Fun — in the Santa supply business since 1996 — handled a whopping 600-odd bookings for its specially trained team of Santas in their custom-made costumes and yak-haired beards.
Since then, demand for the man from the North Pole has gone south every year, with only 150 bookings so far this season, said James Lovell, director of the Ministry of Fun Santa School.
Lovell — whose alarm at the feared demise of Santa’s grottos has made a splash in the British press — suspects a bit of Scrooge-ism in the retail industry.
”Department stores in Britain are not clearing the space for a Christmas grotto,” he said. ”There aren’t those magical grotto environments. A lot of stores have just stuck up more shelves, selling more products.”
Some big department stores in London prefer not to put it so bluntly, but they confirm that they have done away with grottos in order for Santa Claus to ramble through the books, food and toy departments.
”We have Father Christmas here,” said a spokesperson for Selfridge’s on Oxford Street, the capital’s premier shopping drag. ”He stops all over the store. It gives our customers better access to him. They don’t have to queue for a grotto.”
John Lewis has a similar perambulating Father Christmas, a spokesperson said.
Harrods is claiming bragging rights as the only big London department store with a fully fledged grotto, where families can expect to wait an hour or more for their turn to meet Santa.
Out in the suburbs, the massive Lakeside and Brent Cross shopping centres, east and north of London, each boast grottos — although the latter seems disrespectfully located behind a car park.
Beyond the capital, Debenhams, the nation’s most-visited department store, says it has grottos in only 65 of its 106 outlets, including a very modest one at its flagship outlet on Oxford Street.
When an AFP reporter visited him the other day, there were no signs to say Father Christmas was even there, let alone with children on his lap.
”I must have scared them all away,” the bearded icon said forlornly. ”At least I’m getting paid.”
Outside Birmingham, a massive grotto at Woolworths in Kidderminster — a whopping 495 cubic metres certified in 2000 by Guinness World Records as the biggest to date — is now history.
”It’s non-existent, I’m afraid,” a clerk at the store said.
Kate Ison, spokesperson for the British Retail Consortium, representing the £235,8-billion retail industry, said it’s too soon to say if Santa’s grottos are doomed.
”It’s one of those things where, one year, bookings can shoot up, and the next year they may not be as good,” she said. ”We really think it’s just a blip this year. Father Christmas is never going to go out of fashion.
”It may well be that retailers are looking at using their space differently, or trying new things,” given that Christmas can account for 40% to 60% of a big retailer’s annual turnover, she added.
The origins of grottos are lost in the mists of time. Some trace them back to pagan times, when — prior to the arrival of Christianity — they were places of mid-winter worship of the sun god Mithras.
At the Ministry of Fun, Lovell (39) is sounding an alarm not so much on account of lost business. Indeed, the agency is having one of its best years yet in its main stock in trade, which is promotional stunts.
It still runs its annual Santa School, graduating two dozen Father Christmas lookalikes, many of them seasoned West End actors, trained to field awkward kids’ questions, the season’s hip toys, and even how to say Merry Christmas in eight foreign languages including Latin (”Natale Hilate”).
The real concern is that a wonderful tradition may come to pass.
”The whole magic of Father Christmas is the fact that he is the patron saint of all children and gives preference to children,” Lovell said. ”That should be done in a proper nice way … We need grottos.” — Sapa-AFP