Opening Line
The opening line of the book is dominated by the use of imagery. “Last Christmas morning Father Christmas had come home feeling very tired, freezing cold—and more grumpy than ever.” The imagery portrays Father Christmas as prone to grumpiness and not a fan of cold weather. This instantly establishes that the story is going to present a subversive and ironic portrait of the title character.
Santa’s Other Interests
One of the non-traditional ways that the book portrays Father Christmas is by illuminating that he is more than the worldwide traveler and one-day-a-year dispenser of gifts. Visual imagery is utilized to great effect to show that he enjoys a life apart from his well-known job. To go incognito, he adopts a “stripey jumper and a beret.” Later, he is shown dancing to bagpipe music while wearing that same outfit. Just one page over, a panel shows Father Christmas in golfing attire on the links. Arguably the most subversive imagery of all has a dark-suited Santa standing in front of slot machines while in the foreground are gold coins suspended in mid-air after being thrown up in the joyous celebration of winning a jackpot.
Just an Ordinary Guy
Imagery is also utilized to implicate Father Christmas as just an ordinary guy. “Soon it was time to get his suit from the dry cleaners. The lady in the shop who served him thought he was going to a fancy dress party.” To this assumption, he reassumes his posture of grumpiness by “growling” at her that he would be lucky to pick up his red velvet suit lined with fur simply for attending a party. While picking up that familiar suit, Father Christmas is portrayed as bald without his familiar red cap while attired in an unfamiliar green coat. All this imagery combines to demystify the title character as a magical figure and repurpose him as just an ordinary guy with an extraordinary job.
Santa’s Gifts
The story concludes on imagery rarely considered in other stories about Santa. Father Christmas has settled in his bed for the night along with two gifts for him not from him. The gifts both reveal levels of Father Christmas not usually portrayed. The first gift is a tie from Auntie Edie and the second are socks from Cousin Violet. He describes these rather uncharitably as “another bloomin’ awful tie” and “the usual ghastly socks.” It is the next-to-last image of Father Christmas which is perhaps the most shocking and subversive as he hugs a bottle of alcohol to his face dominated by a tell-tale red nose as he thanks always dependable Uncle Bob.
