Welcome to Jingle Wells

YOU couldn’t blame the poor postman for stopping his van and rubbing his eyes in disbelief.

After all, it’s not every day you find the road on your usual route taken over by an army of Santas marching purposively in a kind of Reservoir Dogs formation, patting their bellies, and bellowing out cheers of ‘Ho ho ho!’

I’m in the midst of that advancing sea of red and white, as the 30 of us, and our glamorous elf assistants, make our way to Santa training school in the wonderfully named Wookey Hole in rural Wells, near the counties of Bath and Somerset in southwest England.

All of these guys — who are mostly retired and/or grandfathers themselves — are here in the Wookey Hole Cave’s Big Top restaurant on this wet Wednesday morning to train for their roles in the Wookey Hole Winter Wonderland and Grotto, while a few other freelancers are also attending in order to be deputised elsewhere around England as and when they’re needed. Organised by the ‘Ministry of Fun’, they call themselves ‘Britain’s number one Father Christmas supplier’.

It’s evident from the get-go that I’m the rookie. The first order of the day is get kitted out in the appropriate attire. Elfin assistant Gayle finds me some spare Santa clobber — including attachable white beard — but it soon becomes clear I’m going to stand out like a certain reindeer’s nose amongst this posse.

For one thing, I’m not rotund enough, though ‘jolly’ is probably the nicer way to put it. “Eat some mince pies mate,” advises one Santa as we walk into the makeshift classroom. “A stiff blizzard would blow him over,” quips another.

It’s not often I wish I were a huskier gentleman, but today is definitely one of those days. It gets worse when I — nerd that I am — choose a seat at the very front of the classroom as our lecture begins.

Our festive professor James Lovell, from the London-based Ministry of Fun, stands on a podium in front of us, welcoming us and inviting us to give ourselves a round of applause to start the day. He then gives us some exercises to get warmed up: namely flashing some jazz hands, and rehearsing cries of ‘Shoddy!’ for when someone flops at a given task. There are even jokes to loosen us up. “Why are Santas so jolly?” asks one. “Because they know where all the naughty girls live!”

So far, so good. But then James spots me, and his face can’t hide the disgust. “Santa Declan, can you stand up here in front of the class?” he asks. Gulp, that takes me back (well, apart from the ‘Santa’ bit).

“Oh dear, oh dear,” he exclaims, walking around me, staring at my get-up. “Now class, Declan here is everything a Santa shouldn’t be,” he continues. “For one thing, he’s too skinny. His costume is terrible. I can see his blue T-shirt underneath his Santa jacket, his dark sideburns are showing, his beard is awful, and…” James pauses as his eyes slowly drop to my feet, before widening in silent horror, not unlike Meryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada.

“And he’s not wearing boots!” he exclaims. Indeed I’m not; it didn’t even occur to me. In their stead is a pair of purple Converse shoes. “Erm, I made a list of what I need, but I mustn’t have checked it twice,” I attempt. The class explodes in a chorus of ‘Shoddy!’, while balls of paper are thrown at me.

“Declan please move back from the front row, I can’t look at you,” James says as I skulk back to my seat. Yes, I’m here 10 minutes and I’m already a Santa dunce.

James then breaks into a lecture on the history of Santa and Christmas (in case you’re interested, St Nicholas was born in 208AD in Myra in modern day Turkey, he’s the patron saint of Aberdeen, and his feast day is December 6).

We go through how Oliver Cromwell banned Christmas in 1647 (it was restored by Charles II in 1660), and learn other trivia-tastic titbits such as how the first department store Santa in the world appeared in the James Edgar Store in Brockton, Massachusetts in 1890.

We also delve into the science of Santa. Did you know that on any given Christmas Eve, the Big Man makes 842m stops, covering over 218 million miles, travelling at 1,280 miles per second? Santa also carries some 400,000 tonnes of gifts, which would require 360,000 reindeer to heave the sleigh, and he has only 1/1,000 of a second to get down a chimney, deliver the gifts, eat and drink whatever’s left out for him, and the get back to the sleigh. But, as James points out, Santa defies science, and is an expert in magic and quantum physics, and travels by turbo-charged sleigh.

After that we must master the ability to say ‘Happy Christmas’ in a variety of languages (on the off chance some retired Oxford don is bringing his grandchildren to the grotto).

The reason being? Santa is supposed to be wise and have all the answers. It’s a wonder he hasn’t been recruited by the IMF. However, the most important method of communication of all is the eyes. “They’re the only part of your body the kids can see,” James explains. “That can be scary for them. Your eyes need to be friendly and welcoming.”!

For the first time today, my relative deficiency in adipose tissue comes in handy. It turns out a pair of acrobats are present, and they need someone small (I prefer the term ‘slight’) to take part in a photocall.

Cut to me wobbling on these poor guys shoulders trying to look as festive as possible without toppling over and landing on my Kris Kringle.

Then we’re all invited to mount a special bucking reindeer bronco to give us some sense of what the main man goes through while operating that sled of his. I manage to stay on for about 15 seconds (the record is one minute by Santa Hayden).

We’re promptly ushered into the main hall where a long dining table has been set up and decked out in full for Christmas lunch, which consists of platters of turkey and cranberry sandwiches, mince pies and Christmas cakes. Grace before meals consists of a blast of Walking in a Winter Wonderland.

In the afternoon, it’s back to class with Professor James. It’s time to memorise the names of the reindeer: Donder and Dasher, Cupid and Vixen, Dancer and Prancer, Comet and Blitzen…aaaaaaaaand Rudolph! We’re also brought up to speed on the most popular toys this year (in short, anything from Toy Story 3, Ben 10, and Zhu Zhu Pet Hamsters).

Tsk, that’s the easy part. We’re fast approaching the most pivotal part of the day: role play and common scenarios. And it’s becoming clear that I’m competing here with the Brandos, Pacinos and DeNiro’s of the Santa world, each one a committed student of the ‘Santaslavski’ Method of Acting.

“It’s crucial that you know how to improvise,” James begins. “It’s so important to do this right. In all seriousness, kids will remember this forever, so you have to make it magical.” Yikes. No pressure then (it turns out that at this Wonderland, Santas work in 1¼ hour shifts broken up with 45 minute breaks. “You need it, trust me,” explains the experienced Santa Derek Evans).

“When speaking to kids, avoid asking questions that might produce one word answers,” James continues. “Get them talking — ask them their age, if they have brothers and sisters, what’s on the top of their list, have they been good and so on. It might sound easy, but it can be extremely difficult. Try make small talk with children some time and you’ll see what I mean.”

James has four female adult elves on hand to pose as different types of children, and various Santas are called up to the top of the class to play out a scenario. Some ‘kids’ are shy; others bolshy. “I want a horse!” shouts Elf Jo-Jo.

“Ah, a common problem,” interjects James. “When kids ask for live animals, simply explain that you can’t bring them as they spook the reindeer. Another one is, ‘But we don’t have a chimney’. So in that instance just explain that you have a magic key that lets you in their front door.”

James pauses before stating with added emphasis: “The most important thing is to never, ever promise the children anything. Instead say, ‘I’ll see what I can do’, ‘I’ll do my best’ or the classic, ‘Whatever I get you, it’ll be something very nice’. If you can, keep an eye on the parents to see if they nod or are furiously shaking their heads. Each visit should only last two minutes, and wrap it up by saying you have to feed the reindeer. That way, you’re not asking them to leave.”

This is all very informative, but I have a sneaking suspicion of what’s coming next, so, like I used to do for six years of maths classes in secondary school, I make sure to keep my eyes down pretending to be very busy taking notes.

“Santa Declan, would you please come up?” James asks. I reluctantly walk to the front. It’s honestly the most paralysingly scary thing I think I’ve ever done. “Now Declan, Elf Nikki here is going to be a shy seven year old.”

The first task is to muster the deep Santa voice. I’m way too sober for this, I think. “So Nikki,” I say in a mangled bass tone, “are you here today with your mummy and daddy?”

“No, just Mummy,” Nikki replies, smelling blood. “Daddy doesn’t live with us.”

I freeze. “Well,” I stumble, “toys are my speciality, so what would you like for Christmas?”

I sneak a quick look at James. He nods approvingly.

“A new house,” Nikki replies.

“Erm, well, I don’t think I could fit that on my sleigh Nikki,” I say through clenched teeth. “What was next on your list?”

From there it runs smoothly, and I get a hearty round of applause from the class. Shockingly, James is impressed by my efforts. “Not bad for a newbie at all,” he says, patting me on the back.

“You’re funny. You kept the conversation going. You moved on jovially from a tricky topic. Plus you told her gently to go to bed early on Christmas Eve. You just need to work on the voice and get fatter!”

And that marks the end of Santa training school. We toast our graduation with certificates and a glass (or three) of sherry before heading off on our merry way. I now have 12 months to work on my belly and then I might have a shot at my first Santa job next Christmas. I live in ho-ho-hope.