There are certain words in parenting that should automatically make you suspicious. "Free" is one of them. "Quick" is another. So when I heard the Brunel Shopping Centre was opening a completely free Santa's grotto this Christmas, I felt the particular mixture of relief and mistrust I usually reserve for self-checkout machines.
The grotto opens on 14 November and runs most weekends and some weekdays through to Christmas Eve, with visits bookable online. It's part of a wider festive push at the centre, including a seasonal Makers' Market on 28 November and 12 December, and local choirs performing carols in exchange for a charitable donation per group. A spokesperson described it as an inclusive, community-focused programme designed to ease financial pressure on families. In fairness, as a parent who has previously paid £18 for a photograph of my own child looking faintly alarmed by a man in a beard, I'll take it.
Because, and I say this with love, Christmas grottos are rarely free in any meaningful sense. There's the outfit nobody agreed to wear without a meltdown. The queue, which somehow always coincides with nap time. The inevitable moment where the youngest refuses to sit on Santa's knee and instead hides behind my leg, which is apparently also free, though it has never once felt like it.
Still, no entry fee is no entry fee, and I'm not entirely convinced I'll say no to that twice in one December. Booking is strongly encouraged, which I read as code for "we have learned our lesson about families turning up at 4pm on a Saturday expecting a miracle."
Brenda Pask, 72, of Old Town, who has lived there since before it was old, said in her day Father Christmas simply appeared at the school fete in a borrowed beard and a van driver's trousers, and nobody had to book him like a hair appointment. "Ron always said if you need an app to see Santa, you've already ruined Christmas," she said, before adding that she'd still be going, because Rich Teas were half price in the market that day.
Would I book early, bring snacks, and brace for at least one shoe-related incident? Almost certainly. Would I call it free? Only in the sense that the grotto itself doesn't charge, which, by December standards, counts as a bargain.