The Nightmare that was Christmas

When I was a young boy, the family house was broken into while we were out at Nan and Granddad’s and for the next six weeks or so I had trouble sleeping.

Not unsurprising really, but every creek and clang in the house at night was enough to put me into a nervous stuper. Eventually as normality was returned and the house was repopulated with items I found myself at ease at night once again.

Well, until the  Christmas of that year, when the thoughts of a child turn their mind to the iminant arrival of Father Christmas. Now no doubt owing to the break in my dreams of Father Christmas didn’t go as they did before, now Father Christmas was a creepy guy who could effortlessly break into the house and leave with no trace, a sinister man who was watching me all the  time and certain Christmas song lyrics became very sinister, almost threatening.

So as you may imagine, when I grew out of  Father Christmas it was something of a huge weight off my mind. But there are shadows of that old nightmare left, often if a write or tell a festive tale there is something sinister connected to  Father Christmas.

 

Of course my nightmare may also have been influencedoing by a seasonal episode  of  the  Avengers entitled Too Many Christmas  Trees which does have a plot involving a Christmas nightmare and a scary Santa.