The one where a reindeer ate my mate

Photo by Keven Law under Creative Commons Licence

My friend had his beard eaten by a reindeer, once.

He was a council employee back in Wales and fell victim during the annual December tradition held in our home town.

Every year, on a dark winter Friday night, a council employee dressed as Father Christmas is towed in his reindeer-pulled sleigh up the town’s sloping high street.

Hundreds of parents line the procession, hoisting children on to their shoulders to see over the hazard barriers.

When the sleigh reaches the peak of the street, it stops outside Woolworths.

The shop was a former multi-story cinema and bingo hall until the American giant turned the ground floor into a shopping area during the sixties.

So every year Santa pulls his reindeer over at the hill’s zenith, gets out of his sleigh and goes through the lit shop doors.

Five minutes later children start pointing at the tall building’s roof, where a red blob has been picked out by a spotlight.

Then a fire engine from the town’s fire station pulls up, sirens blaring, before winding out a vertical ladder, climbed by a fireman.

The fireman then climbs backs down, followed by Father Christmas.

One year, my mate agreed to be Santa.

So on a crisp Friday night he found himself being towed along by a smelly reindeer, dressed in an itchy Santa outfit with a badly-fitting beard, waving to the crowd.

When the sleigh reached the brow of the hill outside Woolworths - hundreds of families scrunched together to see Santa - he pulled in the reins. Hard.

That’s when the reindeer’s head snapped around, nostrils flared, and clapped its blood-shot eyes on my mate.

The festive fiend then lunged at his face and ripped his Santa beard off with its teeth.

My mate fell out of the sleigh in trouser-wetting terror, while the beast washed the beard around its mouth a few times then spat its dripping wet remains at a surprised child, who started crying.

Good times.

If you want to learn how to identify the nice from the naughty and how to evacuate a grotto, click here.

Next week: Red 20/20 and blue Ben Sherman shirts.