Fears of a Christmas-themed child trafficking racket, or worse still a seasonal peadophile ring, operating the UK have been raised following a number of disappearances from Santa’s Grottos up and down the country. But is something even more sinister going on? What is the mysterious ‘Cult of Santa’ and has it do with the apparent abductions? Numerous parents have reported their children vanishing during visits to ‘meet Santa’ at various stores and shopping centres. So far, police have been unable to trace any of the youngsters. “It just looked like a normal shopping mall grotto – a bit tatty, covered in cheap tinsel and with some pimply work experience kid in an ill-fitting elf suit outside, but my boy wanted to go in and meet Father Christmas” recalls thirty six year old Amy Plate describing to the Runcorn Weekly Seasonal Traders Bulletin the fateful day when her ten year old son Fred vanished. “He was insistent that he didn’t need me to come in with him. Well, after about fifteen minutes of hanging around outside, waiting for him to come out, I started to get worried, but when I tried to go in to find out what was going on, the ‘elf’ tried to stop me.” Pushing past the ‘elf’, Plate entered the grotto to find it completely empty: no son, no Santa, no presents. “Of course, I panicked, running out into the shopping mall in search of help,” she explained to the local newspaper. “But when I got back there with some security guards, the grotto was gone! There was no trace of it and no sign of the ‘elf’!” In a disturbing development, the mall’s management denied that they had even commissioned a Christmas grotto. Despite extensive police enquiries, young Fred remains missing.
This pattern of vanishing children and disappearing grottos has been repeated all over Britain in the run up to Christmas. But it isn’t just children that are disappearing under mysterious, Santa-related, circumstances. “I just thought it was one of those charity parade things you get at this time of year. You know the sort of thing: Santa’s sleigh and reindeer on the back of a van with some overweight bigwig from the local Rotarians in a red suit coming slowly down the street, while his ‘helpers’ knock on doors and ask for money as Christmas music blares out,” twenty five year old Sam Bowl explained to the Portsmouth Pigeon Fanciers’ News. “But it seemed a lot slicker than usual – the sleigh wasn’t on a van, it was being pulled down the street by real reindeer – even though there was no snow for it to run on! Anyway, me and my mates were watching it as it came past and Santa turned to us and invited us aboard! I had a bus to catch, so didn’t get on, but the others did. Then they all went off down the street with Santa laughing and ringing his bell and that was the last time I saw them! Nobody has seen or heard from them since!” Once again, efforts by the police to locate Susie Cup, aged twenty four, Paul Saucer, also twenty four, Mary Mug, aged twenty three and Barry Jug, twenty six, have proven fruitless. Likewise, attempts to trace the sleigh have drawn a blank, with no local charities having organised such an event. As with the grottos, the have been similar reports of adult abductions via phantom sleighs all over the country.
Not surprisingly, this string of disappearances has led to an anti-Santa backlash, with many parents voicing their concerns over the possibility of a peadophile creeping into their childrens’ bedrooms this Christmas. “Just what kind of ‘presents’ is the old perv going to give our kids, eh?” Mick Dish, organiser of a local ‘Parents’ Watch Committee’ in Canterbury asked in an interview with his local radio station, ‘The Big Kent Sound’. “Probably his bloody tallywhacker wrapped in Christmas paper! I’ll tell you – this Christmas Eve I’m going to be waiting in front of my fireplace with a sodding shotgun and if that fat bastard comes down the chimney, I’m letting him have it with both barrels!” The backlash has also seen attacks on Santa grottos, with several being burned down, and several shopping centre Santas have been attacked by mobs of angry parents. A ‘Christmas Wonderland’ attraction in Essex was stormed by a mob numbering in the hundreds, resulting in widespread destruction and an attempted Santa lynching. Police fear that the incidents risk getting out of hand and that there is a real risk that, sooner rather than later, a Santa or elf will lose their lives. “It’s getting to the stage where anything Santa-related is being attacked,” Chief Inspector Tommy Tray of the Essex Constabulary told a press conference . “Only last night, we had a report of a gang climbing onto the roof of a bungalow in Basildon and throwing an illuminated life-sized Santa and sleigh decoration to the ground! I mean, it was a bloody decoration – what threat could that possibly pose?”
There has been much speculation as to the purpose of the abductions, with much focus on the possibility that a criminal organisation is behind the scheme. “It seems obvious to me what is going on – all the victims are children or young adults,” opines noted criminologist James Platter. “It’s all about human trafficking – there’s a big demand for white slaves in some parts of the world. It’s all part of those foreign Johnnies’ lingering sense of inferiority after being given a kicking by the British Empire back in the day!” But others feel that the seasonal connection is significant. “Why is this happening and Christmas and why are abductors dressed as Santa?” asks Harry Pan, Chief Crime Correspondent of the Norks on Sunday tabloid. “I think it is obvious that these unfortunates are being kidnapped by Santa himself to supplement his North Pole workforce. Perhaps with the low wages he’s been paying, he can no longer get the staff, or maybe the elves and other workers are on strike and these abductees are being used to break the strike!”
Folklore expert Oliver Tureen, however, believes that the Christmas connection signals that something altogether more sinister is going on. “In my opinion, these abductions have been carried out by the shadowy ‘Cult of Santa’ – an ancient underground organisation that believes in the literal existence of Santa Claus and seek to physically resurrect him,” he claims. “While many believe that they perform human blood sacrifices around this time of year, garotting victims with strings of tinsel in front of an altar shaped like a fireplace, presided over by a Christmas tree then pouring the blood over a Santa hat in the hope of resurrecting Santa himself, the truth is actually rather more mundane.” According to Tureen, the abductees are less likely to be sacrificed than they are to be indoctrinated into the cult. “By next Christmas, they’ll be able to don the sacred robes and go put into the world to spread the word of Santa,” explains the folklorist. “Where else do you think all those Santas and elves that proliferate in our shopping malls and on our streets come from every year?”
