Father Christmas Goes on Holiday

"Yes! And there are a couple of levels on which it works well. He takes Father Christmas, a figure we know so well: he is big and jolly, he has reindeer, he lives on the North Pole, he has elves. But Raymond Briggs tells us that Father Christmas, in fact, lives in a terrace house with a dog and a cat and is a miserable old sod. So we begin with this brilliant bit of incongruity, the mixture of Father Christmas and just normal everyday life that we can all recognise. Then Briggs asks how might Father Christmas act in these ordinary situations. The reason I like Father Christmas Goes on Holiday so much is that, for example, putting him on a lilo a Las Vegas swimming pool is about as far from our conventional idea of Father Christmas as it is possible to get. “Father Christmas goes to a French campsite and gets diarrhoea, then he goes to Vegas and gets horribly drunk” The other thing Briggs is so brilliant at is observational comedy—he shows us how ridiculous life can be. So Father Christmas goes to a French campsite and gets terrible diarrhoea, then he goes to Vegas and gets horribly drunk, overdoes it, is shocked by a huge bill and gets sunburnt! I’m not sure that getting drunk in Vegas happens to everyone but a lot of it is stuff that happens to ordinary people and Father Christmas reacts as they would. It is funny because he is Father Christmas. Especially for a child because Father Christmas is such a big deal. This is one of the first times you can think of Father Christmas as a normal guy. Yes, and I like it when there isn’t a happy ending! I like it when things end and they are just kind of okay—Father Christmas has this incredible adventure, yet, when he gets home he is just relieved. He’d had an alright time, but not great. I try not to set out to make a funny book. Trying to be funny is never funny. EB White, the author of Charlotte’s Web , had some brilliant advice, he said, “talking about humour is like dissecting a frog: the process is horrible and at the end the frog has died!” So I try not to kill too many frogs while I’m making a book."

"This is a grand little book this. I’m just like that, I am. I don’t know how that Briggs character got a good look at me but a look he’s had and that’s a fact. He’s even drawn the house right, the reindeer, the dog. Sneaking around, he must have been. Shown me going off to France buying that long bread, doing my level best to fit in with a striped jersey like they wear on the telly. But the food! Thought I was going to die after all that cream. And then off to Scotland in the freezing bloomin’ cold, half froze to death as if it’s not cold enough at home. And then Las Vegas! That were grand. Lovely ladies, warm water to swim in, drinks by the pool. But it’s always good to get home by myself in the cold, opening the letters after a blooming good holiday! I am that. HO HO HO!"