Claire Trevett: Why the jolly bearded one brings kids out in a sweat

Opinion

I have to confess, Santa scares the heck out of me. Always has.

I am a good girl who would otherwise be well-placed for an influx of presents and lollies. But still, I always cross the road if I see Santa.

There are children who lie awake, hoping to ambush Santa in the flesh. This makes sense in these consumer-savvy days. Santa is there to provide a service. If you order one thing and he delivers another, it pays to be there to check it when he delivers. Otherwise you have to wait all year for a refund.

However, as far as I am concerned, Santa has his place, and that is in the North Pole - which is a nice, long distance away.

Except for when the Santa Parade comes to Queen St.

And this year I was also there.

I have heard of children who cry as soon as look at him. These children blockade their bedroom on Christmas Eve, wanting him to dump the presents and leave.

It seemed half of Auckland's children were at the parade and the other half were in it. Surely some of them would be Santaphobes.

The signs of his imminent arrival were not encouraging.

Before there was even a glimmer of Santa, the cheerleaders relentlessly sang of my Armageddon, chanting "S-A-N-T-A. Santa's coming. Hooray".

There was a moment of hope when the man with a loudspeaker before the parade gave top billing to Lana Coc-Kroft and SpongeBob SquarePants. I thought Santa had called in sick.

But then he ended with: "Who's the one we all want to see? The star of the show? A man by the name of Mr S. Claus."

I went in search of the elves to see if my fears were justified. But no. The elves did not much want to hear that I was scared of Santa and tried to squash me with their balloons. They asked why I was scared.

It is not the beard, or the puku in an era of an obesity epidemic, it is because Santa is not renowned for his conversational skills. He is stupid. "Have you been a good girl?" he asks. If you answer "yes" you get a present. He is a sucker. What person worth their salt is going to say "no"?

So there are children who, like I did, come face to face with Santa and get stage fright. They do not want to sit on his knee because they have no idea what to say. It seems cheap to parrot off a list of wants when there is world peace to sort out.

Especially when all Santa can come back with is "ho ho ho", which, by the time you are an adult, is an insult. So I will keep crossing the road when I see him.

* Claire Trevett is a Herald reporter. She covered the parade on Sunday.