Santa's Surprise

Christmas 2005

2005 was shaping up to be one of those years like, if it can go wrong it does go wrong.

Less than half way through the year a friend ( Micah, "cheers mate" ) asked if I'd be going to England to visit family. I told him, the chances of me getting to England are less than zero. I went on to tell him that what I would REALLY like to do is surprise my children and turn up at Christmas dressed as Santa. Well, that was just a dream and the year carried on the way it had began. It got to September/October, it had been a full year since I had seen my children and the thought of not seeing them for at least another year was very hard to bear.

After a while things began to look up.... So just on the off chance that it might be possible, I began to talk to people. I first spoke to Jenny's in-law's, Alan and Kath to ask them not to invite Jenny, Mark and Michael to Morecombe for Christmas. I told Kath that there was a very slim chance that I might be there for Christmas and I didn't want Jenny and Michael to be about 100 miles away while I was on the Wirral. I also spoke to my sister Eileen to tell her what was in my mind. Time was moving on, it was now November. I had been watching air fares and I knew that they would rise as Christmas got closer. It got to a point where I had to decide, shall I pay the bills??? or shall I buy an airline ticket to see my kids???

So the ticked was dated Friday December 16th to leave Cleveland. via New York arriving in Manchester, England early in the morning of Saturday December 17th.

I had spoken to Eileen and asked her if she could beg, borrow or steal a Santa suit, she answered saying, Wouldn't you know it, Paul has one. So between us, we arranged that my kids would all be at Jenny's by 1pm Saturday December 17th under the pretence that I had sent a package to her for them all and she wanted to video them opening it and send video messages to me.

Margaret picked me up at the airport and I went to her house to try to rest but there was no chance of that since I was so excited.

Eileen went in first to announce...... Santa is here.......

The video is very heavily edited so here is what you maybe didn't see......

Michael doesn't like Santa so he cries all the time. Jenny, sitting close to me soon starts saying to Emma, "it's me dad, it's me dad" but Emma is saying, "no it's not". Brian hears Jenny and says "yes is is" but he is far from sure. Stephen, whom I expected to be the first to notice did not have a clue. I was trying not to talk or make eye contact with anyone and I had hoped that the kids would open presents as they were given out so that they wouldn't be looking at who was playing Santa, but they all just sat there until I was forced to say "open them up". After they had opened all the gifts I sat up and took off the hat and beard.