4 December: Santa's List Day

 Today is Santa’s List Day. Here are ten facts about Santa's List:

1. Celebrated annually on 4 December, this is said to be the day that Santa Claus makes his list of children who’ve been naughty and children who’ve been nice.

2. Also it’s the day when children start making their wish lists of things they want for Christmas.

3. The first mention of a naughty and nice list occurs in the song, Santa Claus is Coming to Town, written in 1934 by J. Fred Coots and Haven Gillespie.

4. The lyric goes “He’s making a list, He’s checking it twice, He’s gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.”

5. The idea of kids being naughty or nice and it having consequences regarding what they got for Christmas may have come from 16th century Holland. Parents placed their children’s clogs near the fireplace. Good children would find candy or cookies on their clogs. Naughty children, however, would find a lump of Coal.

6. How does Santa even know which list to put a kid on? Well, according to The Elf on the Shelf, a children's book published in 2005, the elves are spying on them. Elves visit people's houses from just after Thanksgiving until Christmas Eve, and report back to Santa each night about who has been naughty or nice.

7. For parents, it can be used to encourage positive behaviour in their children leading up to the holiday season.

8. It serves as a gentle reminder that the true magic of Christmas lies in the joy of spreading love, kindness, and goodwill to others.

9. Santa’s List is a song by Cliff Richard, featured on Cliff Richard’s album, Cliff at Christmas.

10. In the song Santa Baby by Eartha Kitt (1953), the singer is convinced that she’s been a good girl this year and expects Santa to bring her a whole list of (very expensive) gifts.

A Very Variant Christmas

Last year, Jade and Gloria were embroiled in a bitter conflict to win back their throne and their ancestral home. This year, Queen Jade and Princess Gloria want to host the biggest and best Christmas party ever in their palace. They invite all their friends to come and bring guests. Not even the birth of Jade's heir just before Christmas will stop them.

The guest list includes most of Britain's complement of super-powered crime-fighters, their families and friends. What could possibly go wrong?

Gatecrashers, unexpected arrivals, exploding Christmas crackers and a kidnapping, for starters.

Far away in space, the Constellations, a cosmic peacekeeping force, have suffered a tragic loss. They need to recruit a new member to replace their dead colleague. The two top candidates are both at Jade and Gloria's party. The arrival of the recruitment delegation on Christmas Eve is a surprise for everyone; but their visit means one guest now faces a life-changing decision.

Meanwhile, an alliance of the enemies of various guests at the party has infiltrated the palace; they hide in the dungeon, plotting how best to get rid of the crime-fighters and the royal family once and for all. Problem is, they all have their own agendas and differences of opinion on how to achieve their aims.

Not to mention that this year, the ghosts who walk the corridors of the palace on Christmas Eve will be as surprised by the living as the living are by them.

Themes 

Christmas; superheroes; reunions; parties; life choices; shocking surprises; mistaken identity; kidnap and rescue.

Reasons not to read it

• It's a bit short. You could probably read it in one sitting.
• Most of the action takes place at a Christmas party. In a palace.
• It's all about Christmas but there doesn't seem to be a schmaltzy moral message.
• There are a couple of babies and some small children in it - and one nearly gets eaten.
• Santa appears in it, but he isn't really Santa.
• Superheroes. Again.
• Not to mention a whole bunch of super-villains. Again all new ones and not the ones we know from Marvel or DC.

Available from Amazon and Amazon Kindle