I never really got the Grinch until recently, when I became him and ruined Christmas for our little Winty-Lou Who.

It started three weeks ago when I was working.

On my lunch break, I decided to go out for a wander on my Triride. I tried to get out of the accessible door, which is really two half-size doors that open individually.

I hit the touchpad, only to find one of the two doors wasn’t working and that it had been bolted closed, so I couldn’t get out.

Luckily, another member of staff was leaving and stopped to help me unbolt, and pin open the faulty door. If he hadn’t shown up I’d have spent lunch in the lobby. 

There was another exit route, a set of double doors, between two revolving doors, but there was a Christmas Tree right in front of it, making it utterly useless.

I came back into the office via the car park, which is accessed by a steep hill – that’s why I couldn’t go out that way.

I returned to my desk as the building team was in a meeting. An hour later I raised my concerns. The first issue was the accessible door not working. Things break, that’s fine, but no action was logged for this to be fixed.

Then, there’s the double doors, a festive fire hazard with that tree in the way. I’m co-chair of the business’s accessibility network (and the one guy in the building with a wheelchair), so I’m obligated to flag issues like this 

I want to make clear this next part is to show the conversation I had, not to tell anyone off, but to highlight accessibility as an issue we need to be aware of.

I pointed out the issue with the door, and then the tree. I explained that the tree shouldn’t be blocking the secondary access option, and in the evening of an evacuation, it was a barrier to exit. 200 people rushing through revolving doors, yeah, not gonna end well.

I was asked if fixing the accessible door would be enough. I explained it wasn’t, that the door had broken before, and that it would break again, so the main doors must be free of obstruction.

Turns out the Christmas tree had always been placed in front of the door, that has to change.

The building team were pleasant and apologetic, but it is apparent how often accessibility is overlooked. If it’s not your problem, and you can use the other doors, why would you say anything?

It can be exhausting being that voice, it’s just as frustrating to complain about something as it is to experience it, but until everyone makes a point to do it, it’s going to fall on us disabled folk and our support network.

I was assured it would be fixed. As I went to return to my desk, I noticed the touchpad on the door frame, where I needed to tap my pass, was partially blocked by another tree.

The door isn’t automatic, so I need to hold the handle with my left hand, move myself back by pushing against the wall with my right, yank the door open and get through the gap.

Yeah, that’s got to be moved, I advised.

It felt horrible, I’m usually the Christmasy guy, wearing festive jumpers early in November, but here I am demanding the removal of two separate Christmas trees. Again, that’s the toll.

To complete my transformation, I had to do what even the Grinch didn’t manage.

I.

Killed.

Santa.

The wee one is now in high school, I know, I haven’t aged a day since she was born but she’s six months in. We felt that she had an inkling, little things like talking about the cost of gifts, how some kids got more from Santa than others and sarcastic responses to what she’d like for Christmas.

Tracy and I had a talk about how to break the news, as we figured we’d rather be the ones to tell her than some mean-spirited classmate who’d long known the truth and wanted to ruin it for everyone else. We planned how we’d tell her and what we’d say.

We sat her down after dinner where we explained that we wanted to have a talk and tell her the truth. I explained that Santa was real, but not in the way she had been told. He’s not a person, he’s an idea. The idea is that people can give gifts to their children without expecting anything in return and that those children don’t have to worry about how much their parents have spent.

‘We give you gifts, because we like to see your surprise and joy.’

‘This isn’t bad news, it’s good news, because now you get to be Santa! You get to give gifts without expectation and you get to keep the secret for all the other boys and girls who don’t know.’

There were tears, lots of them, as she realised where the gifts over the years had come from and we spoke and laughed about the lengths we’d gone to when trying to acquire her most prized gifts.

She especially enjoyed hearing about my Hatchimal odyssey and how I’d made a pact with a stranger that we’d each text the other should we find them in the wild. Six excursions later and Tracy tracked one down.

We spoke of the Christmas Eve Box, the truth about the Elf on the Shelf and how we’d gone to bed so many times, only to feel a sudden panic when we realised that we hadn’t moved the bloody thing!

We spoke about the tooth fairy while we were at it, only for her to explain ‘What have you been doing with my teeth then?’. Explaining they were upstairs in a jar, and that we had effectively made a single maraca of her discarded body parts was funny.

As I joke, I had intended to wrap the jar and give her those back on the big day, but I forgot in the rush of it all.

It’s sad as we feel like we’re rapidly reaching the end of the wee one’s childhood, but it’s yet another moment that’s brought us closer together, and that’s something magical. Christmas will be a little different from here on in, but different doesn’t mean bad.

A huge bonus is not having to move that elf every day for the best part of a month. We definitely won’t miss that!

I know I’m a little late but Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!