The Christmas Father

‘Daddy?’, said the little boy.

‘Yes kid, what is it?’

‘Is Father Christmas real?’

At this most important question, the man addressed as Daddy, put down the pen with which he was writing out a Christmas card, and looked over at his son.

‘What sort of a question is that?’, he said softly.

The little boy thought about it for a while. ‘Well, it’s just…y’know…’

His father sat back in the chair, folded his hands over his lap and waited.

‘Well, it’s just that the other kids at school have been talking, and I heard one of them — Willy Jenkins — say that, well, that Father Christmas wasn’t real. That it was just a silly story, made up for children.’

‘Is Father Christmas real?’

The boy looked a little sad when he said this.

His Dad scoffed slightly and looked at his son over the top of his glasses. ‘Well, think about it for a moment and then ask yourself this: what does Willy Jenkins know of Father Christmas?’

The boy thought about this for a moment. It’s true that scruffy Willy Jenkins was always talking nonsense in the playground, and saying rude words and the teachers would often tell him to be quiet in class because he was making a silly noise.

‘Not a lot?’, the boy ventured. ‘Exactly’, said Dad, picking up his pen again and casting a weather eye at the pile of cards on the desk. He scratched the beard that he always grew at winter. ‘We’d better get on’, he said. ‘There’s lots still to write. And deliver them too.’

The boy smiled and nodded bravely, but noticed that — for all the talk of Willy Jenkins — his Dad had neither confirmed, nor denied, the existence of Father Christmas.

In the lane outside the house where father and son wrote their Christmas cards, a frost had sprung and spread slowly across the railings, atop the bicycle seats and over the windows of the small village. It wouldn’t snow tonight of course; it never snowed in England at Christmas, everyone knew that. But still, it got very cold, and the winter dark brought with it a still silence that no other season knew. It was on nights like this, nights that drew slowly over autumn and beyond like a quieting veil, that the boy and his father — giggling and shoving each other and telling tall tales — would go for long walks down the old country lanes and across the darkening fields of England’s winter.

And as they walked and talked, his Dad would conjure up stories that made the boy laugh and laugh. They were silly and funny and wise, and took in all manner of exotic things and places and people, that mixed up the fantastic and the mundane as if they were one and fitted together perfectly well, even though they didn’t. The little boy sometimes wondered if his Dad actually did know all these strange things and people, or if he’d just made them up in his head.

‘Daddy?’ the boy would say. ‘Yes, kid?’

‘Were you really a zombie hunter in the Fire Swamps of Loo-ees…Looaysi…loo..’

‘Louisiana’, his Dad had said, looking startled, ‘Why of course I was! That was back in ’79. They were the great slaying days. Me and the guys, Johnny Tran from Vietnam, Spatchcock Jeni from the Reeperbahn and Baron Rex the shaman from Hispaniola. But the fuel prices were so high back then, and what with the shortages and all, I had to give it up eventually, a lot of us did. I blame OPEC.’

‘What is OPEC?’ said the boy.

‘Well they were responsible for the price of petrol, you see?’ The boy’s face was a blank.

‘You need flamethrowers when there are zombies.’

Petrol is fuel for flamethrowers’, his Dad said with a wink. ‘You need flamethrowers when there are zombies.’ The boy’s eyes widened.

Later that evening, with the Christmas cards written and some mince pies on the table, his Dad had said, ‘Shall we go and deliver the cards then? It’s not too late. Maybe we’ll catch the Carol singers round the village square.’

‘I don’t have school tomorrow,’ said the boy.

‘I know.’

‘Maybe I can stay up late?’

‘Maybe.’

Getting ready to go out the boy pulled on his shiny red puffa jacket, while his Dad shrugged on a long dark-green coat that looked very old and well-used, but smart and snug as well, with shiny silver buttons on the sleeves.’

‘I like your coat Daddy. I remember it from last winter.’

‘Oh thanks, I always get it out this time of year. It suits the season.’

Outside down the lane their feet crunched on the frost, with Dad’s black boots making the biggest crunch of all. For the first time the boy noticed that the sack his Dad was carrying with the Christmas cards was bulging with something more than just envelopes.

‘Presents’, his Dad said, without being asked.

‘For me?’ said the boy.

‘Yours are all under the tree, kid.’

‘Apart from the ones Father Christmas is bringing’, said the boy pointedly.

‘Oh they’re definitely coming, don’t you worry about that. As if we’d leave you off the list.’

‘Who is we’ said the boy, who was sometimes sharper than his Dad remembered.

‘Oh, y’know, just people’, said his Dad. ‘Anyway, yes, I’ve got some presents to deliver as well as the cards. Would you like to be my little helper?’

The boy’s elfin face nodded eagerly, ‘Yes, please Daddy.’

‘Ok, come on then. There’s quite a few to get done.’

Finally, they reached the last house in the village, which was darker than all the others and didn’t look as warm or welcoming. There were no jolly Christmas decorations on it, like the other houses. Dad took out the last present in the sack and held it out towards the boy. ‘Would you like to do the honours?’ The present, neatly wrapped in gold and green paper, glistened in the moonlight. It had a single line of writing across the top:

‘To Willy Jenkins. For being a good boy.’

The boy looked at the present and the writing and seemed a bit confused. ‘But Willy Jenkins is really mean to me and the other kids,’ he said. ‘I don’t understand. He’s not a good boy at all.’

His Dad knelt down and looked him in the eye. ‘Sometimes there are reasons, hidden reasons, why people are like they are. It’s best not to judge without knowing. And besides, there’s no such thing as a mean or horrible child. Life can just be a bit tricky sometimes. And every kid deserves a present at Christmas, don’t they?’

The boy thought of Willy Jenkins and his scruffy clothes and messy face, and how he’d brood in the corner of the playground at playtimes, never playing, but looking fierce, daring anyone to come close, which they never did.

‘Perhaps go up and say hello next time’

‘Perhaps go up and say hello next time’, said his Dad, as if reading his thoughts.

The boy went up to the darkened door and put the present under the porch. ‘Happy Christmas Willy’, he said quietly. And then, as he turned to go, he saw something else written on the present, beneath Willy’s name. It said:

From Father Christmas.

Walking slowly back from the darkened porch, he saw his Dad at the top of the pathway in a different light, as if there was a special glow about him tonight. His father turned when he heard him and the boy caught a glint of the shining red silk that was the green coat’s lining, and as his Dad smiled from behind his winter beard, the boy felt a warm glow of kindness sweep over him, that told him he was safe and loved beyond all measure. And in the still night sky the boy swore, even years later when he was old himself and thinking back on Christmases past, that he heard, right then, the note of sleigh bells, as clear as day, carried up high on the midnight wind.

‘Daddy?’

‘Yes, kid.’

‘Well, I wanted to say that..I don’t know but…’

His father smiled and waited.

‘I wanted to tell you that I know that Father Christmas is real. And I know who he is, too.’

‘Oh’, said his Dad, looking surprised, ‘Who is he then?’

The boy looked directly at his father and smiled. ‘I think he’s everyone who is kind and warm and thinks of children at Christmas and makes sure they’re loved and looked after.’

‘I think that’s a very fine definition’, said his Dad, pausing to think. ‘And can I add that not every mystery or beautiful story needs an explanation. Some things exist only in the wind and the still of a winter’s evening, but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist at all.’

The boy nodded and smiled and took his Dad’s hand.

‘Can you hear them, Daddy?’

‘Who’s that?’ said his Dad, looking around.

‘The Carol singers, I can hear them. Look there they are.’

Indeed, just over the way, across the village green, gathered the small band of singers, huddled together with candles under the light of a street lamp. ‘Shall we go and join them?’ The boy nodded eagerly. ‘Oh, so you know the words to Zombie Slayers’ Christmas Ball then?’

‘Daaaaad, that’s not a real Carol’, said the boy, shoving playfully into his father.

And with that the two took off laughing and hugging in the direction of the Carol singers under the lamp, and high above in the cold Christmas night the stars twinkled and a great stillness held sway over all the children and people of the land below.

‘Happy Christmas, Dad.’

‘Happy Christmas, Kid.’

THE END.

Nick Jordan

For Blake.