Does Father Christmas Arrive Too Soon?

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28448, 30 November 1957, Page 15

Does Father Christmas Arrive Too Soon?

(Rec. 7 p.m.) LONDON, Nov. 29. Father Christmas was not having things his own way in Britain lately. Judging by readers’ complaints to editors and the comment from shop managements, the old gentleman has been arriving too soon. There are many persons who like to see him in public only 10 days or so before Christmas, instead of making an appearance early in November as he does now in most big London stores. Father Christmas has already been barred from a Scarborough church Christmas fair because parents thought he frightened young children and arranged for elves and fairies to take his place. Another Blow Now he has been struck another blow by the Chamber of Trade in York, where traders protested about his appearance in shops before Guy Fawkes had been decently disposed of. However, a resolution that Father Christmas should not show up more than four weeks before Christmas was lost by three votes. “We are fast approaching the position when Guy Fawkes goes ou4 of the back door and Father Christmas comes in the front,”

complained Mr John Tedder at the York meeting. “Let us limit this commercialisation. Big department stores introduce Father Christmas far too soon,” he said. Christmastide was once a festival; now it is more and more becoming a racket, a commercial stunt. “There must be thousands of people who feel that one of our great traditions is being destroyed if big stores bring Father Christmas into their premises in November. “What is to stop them next year, dr the year after, starting a month earlier?” Christmas Enterprise Mr Cooper, a Bradford shopkeeper, said.that Father Christmas was no longer an embodiment of the Christmas festival. He was simply a legendary figure, whose use by big stores was an example of enterprise. The resolution was defeated after it had been pointed out that there would be no way of implementing it. Traders would have to ask for legislation and that would mean restrictions on everything else—summer sales starting at the beginning of June. Easter eggs making an appearance at the end of January, and 'firework! at the end of August