Father Christmas has survived another year

Yet millions of children still keep the faith. In fact, far from technological advance having disproved Santa, it’s actually helped bolster the case for him. A seven-year-old American boy called Evan has become a small internet sensation after he decided to catch Father Christmas in the act – by setting up a video camera in his living room on Christmas Eve. Similar ideas have been tried out on Nessie and the Yeti – but on this occasion it produced the goods. You can see Evan watching the playback as, first, the sound of bells is heard; then there’s a puff of smoke; and then – wowser! – Santa appears in the living room! Evan nearly explodes with joy.

Of course, some conspiracy nuts are already saying that the whole thing was put together by Evan’s brother and that the man in the red suit is, in fact, his uncle, Dean. But these are just spoilsports who probably got overlooked by the tooth fairy and have never forgiven the world since. Sad.

Father Christmas might be pure magic for the children, but for mums and dads he has a practical purpose, too. A lady called Laura Cole wrote a letter to her two children, Tyler and Freya, posing as Santa, telling them that they were on his naughty list and that they might not get any presents if they didn’t improve their behaviour. Mrs Cole filmed the tearful reaction, which was volcanic, and says that the impact was instantaneous: “After reading the letter they were amazing, like angels – Tyler helped Freya get dressed and even held her hand on the way to school, which was a big improvement.”

Yes, bringing out the “no presents for you this year” stick is usually very effective, but it backfired on another mother who tried it without careful planning. The American woman, known only as Rachel, got so sick of her three brawling kids acting up in the back of her car that she picked up her mobile phone and pretended to call Santa to complain about them. A policeman spotted it and stopped her. She eventually convinced him that the call wasn’t real (a letter remains the only sure way to reach Santa), but another officer arrived at the scene and discovered that Rachel had missed a car inspection – and handed her a $145 fine.

But while many adults understand Santa to be a useful parenting tool, most also have fond memories of when he once visited them – and it’s surely this Christmassy desire to suspend disbelief and surrender to mystery that keeps the faith alive. In the special Christmas episode of Doctor Who, the producers invited Father Christmas to play himself as a character within a dream – casting some doubt on his reality. But he left behind tangible evidence of his existence at the end of the episode in the form of a tangerine.

Clever and compassionate adults never say silly things like “Santa doesn’t exist” because a) they know deep down that he sort of does, and b) they know that life would be just too prosaic if he didn’t, and c) they know that kids know that adults would say that because they can’t be bothered to leave a glass of whisky and a mince pie out for him on Christmas Eve. Grown-ups are soooo lazy.

We think we live in a rational age when everything real is visible. And yet belief in things we can never hope to see persists. It’s the extraordinary, wonderful lengths that we go to to make children believe in them that, in a way, makes them real.