Scary Santa

I watched Jeunet and Caro's La cité des enfants perdus again the other day. I'd forgotten that this was the opening sequence. It reminds us, helps us to understand that the whole Santa concept is deeply weird, and can be - really, perhaps, should be - deeply disturbing to young children.

I was at a kids' Christmas party just the other week where one little girl shrieked her head off at the arrival of Santa and had to be taken home.

I was glad I wasn't playing the role this time. I had been at the previous year's event. (I was gratified to learn later that one particularly cute four-year-old had pronounced that she much preferred last year's Santa. If only her mum had such good taste....)