Santa's Christmas Eve Blues Now In Paperback

Added at 17:04 on 04 December 2024

This then is the story so far of Santa’s Christmas Eve Blues.

The tale began as a short story called The Night Santa Got The Blues, about Santa feeling miserable, written when my kids were five and three. At the time we were living in Serbia. My son couldn’t really be bothered listening to an esoteric tale about Santa being bored with Christmas. Meanwhile my daughter was outraged at the very idea that Santa would hate kids, and was having none of it. It seemed such a triumph of parental creativity.

There was a Scottish teacher in one of the classes for six-year-olds, and I went into that class and told the story to a bunch of kids who looked at me in a vague who-are-you-again? kind of a way. But then, this was Serbia, not long removed from a brutal war, they were likely fully on board with the idea of Santa being a miserable sod who’d had enough of humanity.

Thereafter, every Christmas I’d grab my guitar, sit my kids down and say, ‘Hey, kids, it’s time for The Night Santa Got The Blues,’ and the boy would instantly doze off, and the girl would stomp out the room, shouting, 'Mum! That man you say is my dad is trying to read that awful Santa story again!'

Back in those distant, pre-Kindle days, when there was no point in writing five novels a year, and I was always rooting around for something else to make my fortune, I decided to turn it into a movie. And so there exists out there in the world a film script entitled The Night Santa Got The Blues, that has, of course, never been made into a film. It’s a romcom, and involves a TV company spending the day at the Big Fat Father Christmas Corporation, as it gets ready for Santa’s big night delivering presents. Except, of course, Santa doesn’t want to go out. The rom in the com was between Santa’s assistant, and a woman from the TV broadcasting team, neither of whom feature in the short story. This was also where I created the character of Three Beards, who ended up in the Barney Thomson Universe.

I had a meeting with a chap at Rocket Pictures about that script, though I don’t think he was terribly interested in it, just wanted to know what else I had going on. Whatever it was, I never saw him again. That was in 2006.

The years passed, I stopped trying to get my kids to listen to this dumb little story, and some things that should not have been forgotten were lost. History became legend. Legend became myth. And for two and a half thousand years, The Night Santa Got The Blues passed out of all knowledge.

Then, in 2012, I signed with Blasted Heath to publish my books digitally. The wee Christmas story was extended a little, retitled Santa's Christmas Eve Blues, a fairly uninteresting cover was stuck on it, and it was published on Kindle for 49p, or whatever the cheapest price was back then.

It sat there on Amazon, doing little for several years, until the Blasted Heath boys threw in the towel, and then I published it myself on Kindle. Seven more years now it's been sitting there, doing nothing, reaching no one.

And now, at last, we come to a paperback edition. This is something that could have happened a long time ago, but I was always disinterested. However, after a bitter power struggle in the Long Midnight Publishing boardroom, I was overruled, and the paperback was put into production.

Santa’s Christmas Eve Blues remains a short tale. It also remains the same old (wonderfully silly) story, though some of the jokes are new. The major addition for the paperback edition, and updated e-book, are some festive illustrations.

At last, after more than twenty years, my daughter read the book. She still doesn't think it's for kids. (I still think it is.) Nevertheless, she created some lovely illustrations to augment the text.

And so now, there’s a paperback. A bite-sized slice of Christmas magic, as it says in the blurb. It’s less than three weeks until Christmas, but the marketing gurus at LMP here in Gstaad are still road-testing the catchphrases. So far we’ve got:

• The stocking filler’s stocking filler.
• The only gift stockings want to be filled by.
• Stockings love to be stuffed by Santa.
• Santa doesn’t exist, but if he did, he’d be this miserable.
• It isn’t Christmas until someone sings the blues!
• Bublé’s Christmas album meets Die Hard.

And for anyone who wants to sing the Santa blues song (the next addition to the slow-moving Santa’s Christmas Eve Blues launch will be the three-minute blues song with accompanying video, in 2037), the first eight lines would be done with a Mannish Boy type of a riff, before heading into a more traditional 12-bar affair for the chorus.

‘It’s a frosty night.
All snowy and cold.
I’m all out of Prozac,
I feel tired and old.
I ain’t puttin’ on that outfit,
ain’t goin’ out on that sleigh,
I hate all those horrible, miserable
children anyway.
They give me the blues,
I’ve got the blues,
I’ve got the blues,
I’ve got the Christmas Eve blues.’

Click on the image to share in the Yuletide fun!