3

Hmmm… I’m getting a little dizzy… let’s just stop and look for a minute… turn slowly leftwards and look at our options.

There are three ways from here… left, right or straight on… oh… they all look the same… which way did we come in through?

There’s a slide show being projected on the wall… Santas around the world?  I haven’t heard of many of them… Cristkindl perhaps?

And the final slide, that it pauses the longest on says:

“How does that help us to choose a door, Daddy?”

I don’t know, Sweetie.  Let’s try to work it out.  Hmmm.  You know me, I’m tempted by the Sausage Swiper but you should make the choice.

Can we get out of here?  That’s left me feeling a little Claus-traphobic! [*]

[*] “Why do we call him Father Christmas, but other people call him Santa… or Saint Nicholas?” asks Isobel.

On another day, when we had a little more time, we could have a little chat about Santas around the world.  For now… let’s try to guess which country each of these comes from:

Père Noèl,            Jultomen, El Niñito Dios,

Swiety Mikolaj (Sweaty?),     Queen Mab (why ‘Queen’?),

Wechnachtsmann (sounds a bit sinister),  Baba Noel,          

Vader Kersfees (I wonder how many millions of people twigged that ‘Vader’ means ‘Father’?),

Christkindl Moss Cracium (sounds like a drug-fuelled Yule!).