Plastic penguins, grotty grottos and grumpy elves: t’s not easy being a Santa impersonator | Alec Powell

Father Christmas is a very real person to so many children. Obviously with Santa being so occupied at this time of year, many impersonators go out to entertain and help with all of the excitement leading up to Christmas. I’ve just finished a 27-show run as a Father Christmas impersonator, at a four-day event run by Dudley metropolitan borough council. The council team presented an outdoor, big-screen Father Christmas experience. With the trees and the hall expertly illuminated and the audience sitting in marquees with two walls taken out, children watched a short story concluding with its characters finding a “magic portal”. The screen blitzed and Father Christmas appeared.

Not all Father Christmas gigs are like this – and I’ve been doing them for 18 years. One year, I worked in a grotto that was actually more “grotty”: a garden shed plonked in the middle of an indoor shopping centre, with some plastic gnomes and penguins dotted around it. A funless elf wheeled the children through at a rate of knots. The hours were long and the pay was poor. Most of the children were too young to understand what was happening; the parents were eager only for that picture with Santa, never mind that their child was bawling their head off. Having an argument in your allocated two minutes is not a very festive option. As with any close contact with children, you need to make sure your reflexes are quick to save your beard. Unless you are a “real-beard Santa” – then it just hurts.

I’ve been reading that there’s a shortage of Father Christmas impersonators, with a glut of job listings generally leading to a possible declining interest in seasonal roles. Poor pay and job insecurity are certainly issues. I once worked a company day where I handed out selection boxes and made balloon animals – I never really understood the thinking behind it, but I charged them lots of money. Jobs like that are rarities though. As the part is played by men “of a certain age” there might also be concern this year about close contact with families, in what are usually pretty hot and confined spaces.

When I am not Father Christmas, I’m a magician, family entertainer and Punch and Judy puppeteer. . In lockdown last year, myself and another entertainer wrote a short Santa show which ran on a stage in a tent with three walls taken out, and the audience socially distanced in their own sleighs. Complete with magic, Santa appearing from the chimney and a snowstorm, it complied with the lockdown regulations at the time; with 10 shows a day, about 9,000 people saw it over nine days.

Obviously many of my fellow Santas have been hit very hard with the events of the past two years. I have been lucky, while many in the entertainment industry have had a difficult time. We read a great deal about the West End theatres, with their millionaire owners and theatres across the country, suffering financially. I have read very little about the individual artistes who are at the really sharp end. Times are very tough for people in the entertainment business – many of whom did not qualify for government assistance – and who, even before the pandemic, were low earners.

Fortunately for the UK government, Father Christmas has not got a vote: I feel his message of goodwill would be strained to the limit seeing officials partying as normal last December, while families sat at different dinner tables, divided, while loved ones died alone in isolation. Merry Christmas, Boris.