There is a Sanity Clause!

And to prove it, here he is coming down the chimney.  (Or the stairs.)

We all had to sit on his lap and answer, honestly, whether we’d been a good or bad little boy or girl.  I told the truth, of course, and Santa pulled my reward out of his sack:

After that, there was the dreaded singsong.  It went pretty well actually, and my relationship with this thing 

is creeping back towards love.

Another nice present I got was a tea mug the size of a small bucket:

I christened it this afternoon with half a pint of Rosie Lee, which served nicely to wash down a Crunchie bar and a finger of fudge.