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Merriment Is Toned Down as the Grinches Gain on Santa - LIZETTE ALVAREZ, NY Times
LONDON, Dec. 12 - Santa Claus, or Father Christmas, as they call him here, has fallen victim to 21st-century notions in Britain. So far this holiday season he has been tainted by parental fears of sexual abuse, marginalized by corporate misgivings about liability and shoved aside by runaway commercialism (which he helped invent in the first place) - not to mention being accosted by teenage toughs on the street.
"It's madness," said James Lovell, the director of a school for Santas run by the Ministry of Fun, a marketing and public relations firm in London that supplies Santas to the stores.
The school has been hard hit by the Santa slump this year.
Mr. Lovell expects that its enrollment by the end of Christmas will be 300, compared with 600 at the comparable time three years ago. The Santa spirit, typically found thriving in shopping malls and major department stores, has been evicted by the retailers' determination to fill every inch of space with merchandise.
"It's all very competitive these days, and they feel they can make more money sticking up more shelves and more products," Mr. Lovell said. "But another reason is that Christmas starts much earlier these days. Some stores are putting up decorations by September. It's too much of a good thing. If you have Champagne every night of your life, you will probably get bored of it after a while."
Here in London, shoppers will not find a single Santa Claus house - a so-called grotto - inside any of the hundreds of stores that line Oxford Street, the city's busiest shopping destination. In fact, with few exceptions, it is not easy to have a sit-down with Santa anywhere in the city.
A children's shop named Daisy & Tom in Chelsea, one of the few places where parents can book a visit with Santa in advance, had no slots left from Dec. 10 to the big day. It does not get much better outside the city, with most other regions also reporting declines in Santa grottoes.
It is no wonder that the experience of visiting Santa at Harrods, the luxury department store with a fullfledged grotto, delivers all the cheer of a rugby scrum in the mud. People line up outside in the cold before opening hours and then sprint through the doors the moment they open. Parents dash up the escalators, thwacking elbows, body checking their competitors and dragging their children behind them, only to line up again for hours inside the store.
Even when a Santa - who has cleared criminal checks - can be found in his house, the setup does not necessarily inspire misty-eyed nostalgia. At the St. Elli Shopping Center in Llanelli, Wales, Santa's lap is off limits; children now sit on a bench next to him, a move aimed at appeasing jittery parents, corporations and Santa himself.
But that's not all. The frosted glass that decorated the house last year was scraped off to provide better sight lines so a newly installed camera can record Santa's every move. "It's peace of mind for the parents and for Santa," said Gilmore Jones, the manager of St. Elli Shopping Center. "Things happen. We didn't mean to be drastic, nothing of the sort."
Santa's house is still popular, and the children do not mind the camera at all, he said. "They think it's a cracking idea," Mr. Jones said. On second thought, he added, wistfully, "People have said it's sad, but they can understand why it's done."
Up north in Scotland, Santa has confronted bigger problems. Every year for decades Santa Claus has ridden down every single street in Clackmannanshire, collecting money for charity. Two years ago, though, he and his elves were set upon by an expletive-shouting gang of 40 teenage thugs who hurled stones, some as big as potatoes.
"We had to kill the lights and music and speed out of the area," Douglas Richmond, one of the elves, told the BBC. "We had to get away as fast as we could. Someone could have had an eye out."
So spooked was Santa that last year's event was canceled. This year Santa is staying put at one location in each village of Clackmannanshire while an unmarked police car is parked conspicuously nearby. The charity collection, sponsored by the social club the Round Table, has been sidelined.
"Rather than risk the collectors or Santa getting injured," said Len Harvey of the Round Table, "we decided not to carry on that way."
Santa did get a vote of confidence in the December issue of Psychiatric Bulletin, in which Dr. Lynda Breen wrote that Santa does more than delight children with presents; he also teaches them right and wrong by keeping the dreaded naughty and nice list.
"Teaching children about Santa is a useful ace up a parent's sleeve, as it encourages their moral development," Dr. Breen wrote.
Of course, her spirited defense of Santa drew equal measures of vilification. "What example of family bonding does Santa Claus set, deserting his wife and kids on Christmas Eve for an all-night house crawl," Francis Wheen, the author of "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World" (published in America with the title "Idiot Proof"), wrote in The Sunday Telegraph.
"As for teaching the value of sharing," Mr. Wheen said, "has Dr. Breen never witnessed sisters and brothers comparing gifts to see who's been shortchanged?"
All the bad news may be getting to Santa. This week in Newtown, Wales, 30 Santas followed up a Santa race for charity with far too much ale at the local pub. It ended in a drunken brawl, quelled by police officers with batons and spray canisters. Five inebriated, disheveled Santas were cuffed and hauled off to jail.
LONDON, Dec. 12 - Santa Claus, or Father Christmas, as they call him here, has fallen victim to 21st-century notions in Britain. So far this holiday season he has been tainted by parental fears of sexual abuse, marginalized by corporate misgivings about liability and shoved aside by runaway commercialism (which he helped invent in the first place) - not to mention being accosted by teenage toughs on the street.
"It's madness," said James Lovell, the director of a school for Santas run by the Ministry of Fun, a marketing and public relations firm in London that supplies Santas to the stores.
The school has been hard hit by the Santa slump this year.
Mr. Lovell expects that its enrollment by the end of Christmas will be 300, compared with 600 at the comparable time three years ago. The Santa spirit, typically found thriving in shopping malls and major department stores, has been evicted by the retailers' determination to fill every inch of space with merchandise.
"It's all very competitive these days, and they feel they can make more money sticking up more shelves and more products," Mr. Lovell said. "But another reason is that Christmas starts much earlier these days. Some stores are putting up decorations by September. It's too much of a good thing. If you have Champagne every night of your life, you will probably get bored of it after a while."
Here in London, shoppers will not find a single Santa Claus house - a so-called grotto - inside any of the hundreds of stores that line Oxford Street, the city's busiest shopping destination. In fact, with few exceptions, it is not easy to have a sit-down with Santa anywhere in the city.
A children's shop named Daisy & Tom in Chelsea, one of the few places where parents can book a visit with Santa in advance, had no slots left from Dec. 10 to the big day. It does not get much better outside the city, with most other regions also reporting declines in Santa grottoes.
It is no wonder that the experience of visiting Santa at Harrods, the luxury department store with a fullfledged grotto, delivers all the cheer of a rugby scrum in the mud. People line up outside in the cold before opening hours and then sprint through the doors the moment they open. Parents dash up the escalators, thwacking elbows, body checking their competitors and dragging their children behind them, only to line up again for hours inside the store.
Even when a Santa - who has cleared criminal checks - can be found in his house, the setup does not necessarily inspire misty-eyed nostalgia. At the St. Elli Shopping Center in Llanelli, Wales, Santa's lap is off limits; children now sit on a bench next to him, a move aimed at appeasing jittery parents, corporations and Santa himself.
But that's not all. The frosted glass that decorated the house last year was scraped off to provide better sight lines so a newly installed camera can record Santa's every move. "It's peace of mind for the parents and for Santa," said Gilmore Jones, the manager of St. Elli Shopping Center. "Things happen. We didn't mean to be drastic, nothing of the sort."
Santa's house is still popular, and the children do not mind the camera at all, he said. "They think it's a cracking idea," Mr. Jones said. On second thought, he added, wistfully, "People have said it's sad, but they can understand why it's done."
Up north in Scotland, Santa has confronted bigger problems. Every year for decades Santa Claus has ridden down every single street in Clackmannanshire, collecting money for charity. Two years ago, though, he and his elves were set upon by an expletive-shouting gang of 40 teenage thugs who hurled stones, some as big as potatoes.
"We had to kill the lights and music and speed out of the area," Douglas Richmond, one of the elves, told the BBC. "We had to get away as fast as we could. Someone could have had an eye out."
So spooked was Santa that last year's event was canceled. This year Santa is staying put at one location in each village of Clackmannanshire while an unmarked police car is parked conspicuously nearby. The charity collection, sponsored by the social club the Round Table, has been sidelined.
"Rather than risk the collectors or Santa getting injured," said Len Harvey of the Round Table, "we decided not to carry on that way."
Santa did get a vote of confidence in the December issue of Psychiatric Bulletin, in which Dr. Lynda Breen wrote that Santa does more than delight children with presents; he also teaches them right and wrong by keeping the dreaded naughty and nice list.
"Teaching children about Santa is a useful ace up a parent's sleeve, as it encourages their moral development," Dr. Breen wrote.
Of course, her spirited defense of Santa drew equal measures of vilification. "What example of family bonding does Santa Claus set, deserting his wife and kids on Christmas Eve for an all-night house crawl," Francis Wheen, the author of "How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World" (published in America with the title "Idiot Proof"), wrote in The Sunday Telegraph.
"As for teaching the value of sharing," Mr. Wheen said, "has Dr. Breen never witnessed sisters and brothers comparing gifts to see who's been shortchanged?"
All the bad news may be getting to Santa. This week in Newtown, Wales, 30 Santas followed up a Santa race for charity with far too much ale at the local pub. It ended in a drunken brawl, quelled by police officers with batons and spray canisters. Five inebriated, disheveled Santas were cuffed and hauled off to jail.
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