Elf and safety: are child protection guidelines killing Santa’s appeal?

Santa Claus is coming to town. I know this because I recently spent an evening gift-wrapping empty boxes to decorate his grotto at an upcoming Christmas fair.

With most of my grandchildren now in their teens, it’s been a while since I endured the grotto experience and I was interested to know how such a thing is managed in 2022. How does one navigate between overbearing safeguarding guidelines and the jaded palate of today’s pre-school sophisticate? Is it even worth the bother?

Like anyone who volunteers for a role that will place them in the company of children, our Santa will undoubtedly have been subjected to a Disclosure and Barring Service background check. Paedophile predators may find it harder to get Santa gigs, but not impossible. Where there’s a will, etc – and safety nets are by definition full of holes. But once he’s been hired and installed in his grotto, his opportunities to prey will be effectively nonexistent.

As I understand it, when in the presence of a child, Santa must be accompanied at all times by one or more vigilant adults. A parent presumably – or, if the parent has negligently wandered off in search of mulled wine, perhaps a DBS-checked supervisory elf will suffice.

This is a good moment to talk about elves. Formerly they toiled away unseen, making toys in Santa’s workshop. Then came the Elf on the Shelf, a figure in a pointy hat who has introduced a faintly sinister note to Christmas preparations. He sits somewhere in your home, taking note of who’s being naughty and who’s being nice and reporting back to Lapland. Santa’s little helper has become Santa’s little snitch.

Meanwhile, you have coughed up the asking price – in Harrods, Santa will be receiving only the children of big spenders – and you stand on the threshold of the grotto, urging forward a four-year-old already well-versed in stranger danger. Within sits an unknown man in a fake beard. Even those of us raised long ago, in ignorance of inappropriate touching, were sometimes seen to howl in terror. I was one such child.

What can today’s scrupulously policed Santa actually do? Can he hoist a child onto his knee? This seems to be discretionary, but generally discouraged. The physical distance from knee to genitalia may not be great but the implications are vast and, as we are constantly warned, you can’t be too careful. Knee, OK; lap, definitely not. But some children are spontaneous huggers. So are some benign old men. Maybe the only way to avoid all possibility of frottage is to replace the man with a cardboard cut-out. How sad.

As an adult, I’ve always felt that Santa works best as an idea rather than a figure to be manifested in a department store and seen on payment of a fee. Good old Saint Nicholas, stealthily leaving gifts for those who needed them and then tiptoeing away unacknowledged. A secret Santa indeed.

Do children today yearn to meet him face to face? Their world is densely populated by superheroes and anti-heroes, available at the flick of a switch. Being able to sleigh-ride around the world at speed or access Christmas stockings without triggering burglar alarms is no longer regarded as a great wonder. Magic has been devalued.

It has actually become a challenge to enchant a child. Given their druthers, I suspect most of them would rather meet Peppa Pig or Krypto the Superdog than pose for a photo with a man wearing Velcro-fastened shoes and a rank polyester costume.

But no one asked my opinion and so we have engaged a Santa. An actor who failed to get a panto perhaps? What exactly have we commissioned him to do? Essentially, he’ll sit in his grotto and be available for appropriately distanced photographs. We really don’t have the elf-power to provide chaperones for any closer encounters. Also, from time to time he may go walkabout among the handicraft stalls crying: ‘Ho ho ho.’ Not quite Tennessee Williams, but times are hard and a chap must take what he can get.

And if you visit him, will you get a gift? This is still under urgent consideration. Grotto presents have always been disappointing, just an incidental extra after the huge privilege of meeting the man himself. Today’s child will certainly not be satisfied with a two quid fidget ball. She wants the Barbie Dreamhouse and she knows where you can buy it and much it costs.

In the long run, can we salvage anything of the old Santa Claus magic? It’s a tough one. Legoland, upping its game, now offers a Santa Sleepover, but relax – the old boy only does a drive-by. Personally, I’d scrap the grotto with all its prohibitions and just screen Raymond Briggs’s Father Christmas on a continuous loop.