My dad said that when he was a kid, the genuine Santa was the one at Lewis's Department Store in Birmingham - all others were imposters and fakes. This Santa made a grand arrival by steam train at New Street Station. There, a coach and horses waited to take him to his grotto in the magical toy department of Lewis's - what other Santa could compete with that?
The nearest I had to Lewis's was the Tamworth Coop and its Grotto in the basement. Never the less, for a modest fee, you not only had the chance to see Santa - you also got to travel to the North Pole!
With my Mom and sister, we made our way down to the basement and climbed into a sort of large sleigh thing. Festive music started playing (probably Wizzard or Slade) and mysterious lights with snowflake patterns flashed as the 'sleigh' made its way to the frozen north - all very magical for a 70s six year old. Finally the lights dimmed and the music stopped.
'Here we are kids - at the North Pole now!'said Mom excitedly.
We left the sleigh and made our way with the other kids to where Santa waited in his Grotto. My turn came and after asking me all the usual questions ( had I been a good boy etc) Santa asked me what would I like for Christmas?
What would I like indeed - a chopper bike? a Millenium Falcon? or even a Mr Frosty?
No - I wanted a bag of balloons (I was a cheap kid to run). I thanked Santa, picked my present (a plastic sword for whacking things with) and we made our way out of the magical grotto.
At age six, I vaguely wondered why when we left the North Pole there was no sleigh ride back, and why we stepped out into the hardware section of the Coop.
'Oh, it's all magic' Mom assured me (an answer I've often used with my own daughter).
In a recent chat about Christmases past, I mentioned to Mom about the Coop Santa and how I genuinely thought we'd travelled in a magic sleigh (that played Wizzard) along to the North Pole .
She seemed surprised. 'You actually thought it was real?'
Of course I did, you told me so, and adults would never lie to kids - would they?
Merry Christmas - fellow bloggers and all!
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