It’s a digital first for Father Christmas! In the midst of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, the man himself will be embracing digital technology this year so that children can still have the magical experience of visiting a Santa’s Grotto, albeit via videoconferencing.

The Ministry of Fun ordinarily supplies Father Christmas performers to stores and shopping centres across the UK, but this year it’s launching a digital grotto with visits at ‘SANTA HQ’. This news fills us with Christmas cheer, but Managing Director Matt Grist is expecting far less booking this year as a result of Covid-19 restrictions...

He explains the negative effect the pandemic has had on the entertainment industry: "It's huge for the events industry, it's huge for the entertainment industry, as the whole year has been, and certainly for all those Santa performers that usually go out and meet children from the end of November every day," said Grist.

"And we wanted to make sure that that wasn't the case for the performers’ benefit, but also and mainly for the children, obviously," he said.

"The obvious way for Santa to still be able to meet as many people as possible was to also enable him to communicate online," continued Grist. "That's where Santa HQ was born. So, he can talk to children all over the world, direct into their homes from his home in the North Pole."

So will Santa Claus really be able to learn how to use Zoom?

"Santa is very old and crotchety sometimes, and this new IT can be a little bit difficult for an old dog to learn, but I've got there and every child can have a visit," said performer 'Santa John'. "But Christmas hasn't changed. There's still going to be people wanting to talk to Santa. Santa is still as needed, possibly more this year than ever before."

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