The Last Time I Cooked for Santa Claus

Last Suppers

The last time I cooked for Santa Claus he was stumbling across my front lawn with his trousers around his ankles, chased by Donner and Blitzen. 

I’d heard them arriving in the usual manner - bells jingling, whip cracking and Santa calling ‘Whoa! Whoa!’ ever more frantically. He was a terrible driver and always crashed into the bushes. This was then followed by a stream of expletives. Thank god the kids were asleep. Not mine, I don't have any. Can’t stand them. But the neighbours do.

Normally he’d come straight in, give me a big hello, hand me some sort of gift and head for the fireside drinks cabinet. Then it would be plum pudding and rum, a rundown on how the night had gone until now, a back clap and an adios. Not so tonight. The crash into the bushes, then silence.

Until the unmistakable boom of a twelve bore. Twice. I ran to the conservatory. Gunshots late in the night rarely bode well.

The night light had been tripped but it took me a moment to see what was going on. Santa Claus lay in the snow, belly down, surrounded by shadow. At first, I thought he was doing a snow angel for my back garden but something wasn't quite right. I switched on the floodlights to see better. The shadow around him was black but it wasn't a shadow. It was blood. Lots of blood. 

Not a snow angel then.

Sometimes I wonder if there isn't something wrong with me. My first thought wasn't for Santa. Was he ok? Was he hurt? Was he dead? No, my first thought was for the plum pudding. Who would eat that now? It would go to waste. Sure, I could give it to the kids in the neighbourhood, but, like I already said…

I quickly came back to my senses. I had to see if he needed help. I nipped back in to get a mince pie, ran across the lawn, got halfway there, and had to turn back. I’d forgotten the brandy butter. I ploughed back through the thick snow, put on a good dollop and then rushed to see if everything was okay. 

But you may have guessed already - it wasn't. Bits of his back had been blown into his hair, parts of his ribcage were exposed and some of his spine reflected white in amongst all the red. His hat was nowhere to be seen and his beautiful suit was ruined. 

‘What in the name of all that’s holy is going on here? I shouted at Blitzen.

He was still holding the shotgun but he didn't scare me. He’d fired both barrels and I knew that aside from myself, the only person capable of reloading, lay on the ground with his brains tangled up in his once silvery locks. 

Obviously, the situation wasn’t funny. Far from it. But I couldn't help a little smirk. Blitzen was up on his hind legs, hooves stuffed in wellies, a full royal head of antlers. He held butt of the shotgun clenched under one legpit and the stock resting across his other front leg. I saw that there was no trigger guard which at least explained how he’d even managed to pull the trigger. The cheroot he was smoking looked like one of mine and I wondered if he’d been rifling my humidor.

Donner was nonchalantly grazing away at some bulrushes at the edge of the frozen pond. She was certainly a cool customer, behaving as if nothing had happened. The only sound was her chewing and her grunted breaths. 

Blitzen exhaled a long plume of smoke and turned to me.

‘Son of a bitch was trying it on with Donner,’ he said. ‘And it’s not like he didn't know. I told him I wouldn't put up with it.’

‘How do you know?’

Blitzen spat a long string of black gob into the snow.

‘How do I know?’ he replied. ‘I caught him at it. And if you don't believe me, perhaps you can explain what that is doing there?’ he said, pointing to the empty halters lying in the snow in front of the sled. Behind Donner’s halter was a box.

‘What is that supposed to prove?’

Blitzen rolled his eyes. He spoke slowly as if he were talking to some sort of cretin. ‘He uses it to stand on.’

I thought it best I move the conversation along.

‘Is he dead?’

‘If he isn’t, he soon will be.’

‘He probably doesn’t want this then’ I said, feeling a little silly, standing there in pyjamas and overcoat, holding out a mince pie. The pie had come straight from the oven and some of the brandy butter had melted, but the drip had frozen before it had been wasted. Just as well. It was a recipe of my father’s and had taken an age to make. Blitzen looked as if he was about to say he’d have it but I pushed the thing into my mouth, whole. Trauma always makes me hungry. And thirsty.

‘You want a drink? I asked

‘I need to find Donner.’

‘She’s over…’ I started, pointing to the pond, ‘Oh. She was over there.’  

‘I’d better find her. I’ll be in soon.’

‘What about him?’ I asked, looking at Santa.

‘What about him?’ Blitzen replied.

‘Fair enough,’ I said, and went back to the house. 

I added a couple more logs to the fire, sat down, poured myself a large brandy and admired the blaze. The rest of the reindeer had gathered outside the window. They stood around drinking, smoking and stamping their feet in the snow. I shook my head. As if my lawn wasn’t enough of a mess already, I grumbled under my breath. 

To shake myself from my despondency, I took another mince pie. I spooned on an even bigger dollop of the butter. I held it before me admiring the crisp pastry, inhaling the aroma of the spices and watching the brandy butter slowly loosen and begin to slide towards my fingers. That is the moment to eat it. In it went.

I think I said it was my father’s recipe. He would sit in the old rocker by this very fire with a mortar between his knees. He would swirl the heavy pestle around in the icing sugar, adding blobs of softened butter one after another. Finally, when all the sugar was incorporated into the butter, the result would be a silken paste so smooth you could have used it as pomade. Then drip by drip, swirl by swirl, the brandy would go in. He managed to get close to fifty percent liquor into that butter. When he was done, the pestle stood up in a golden mound of silken delight.

‘Is that for me?’ a voice asked. 

‘Can be,’ I replied. ‘You want a drink?’

‘Please,’ Donner replied, stamping her hooves and coming in front of the fire. She was wearing Santa’s cap. ‘It’s freezing out there.’

‘What happened?’

‘About what?’

Jesus, these reindeer had tough old hides.

‘Ol’ Saint Nick out there,’ I said, jutting my chin forward and raising my eyebrows, ‘Dead on my lawn.’

‘Oh, that,’ she said. ‘Blitzen overreacted. But has always been a jealous type.’

‘Who are you calling a type, lady?’

Blitzen had come in, still carrying the shotgun. ‘I wish you’d put that down,’ I said. ‘Somebody could get hurt.’

‘We’re going to need a driver tonight and I think we’ve just picked you.’

I was about to protest, I had a lot of drinking and eating to get done over the next twenty-four hours but then I saw the upside. I could make some money. Santa gave the pressiewigs away. No reason I had to. And those parents are such suckers for their little darlings. 

‘Okay, let me charge up the card reader and we’ll get going.’