I’m sorry children. I don’t think there will be any presents this year. My mistress appears to have killed Santa. She claims it was an accident but to be honest I was watching and I’m not so sure. There she was at the top of the stairs with Santa and a piece of rope. She said she was going to hang him from the landing. Now I know what your thinking, you are imagining Santa dangling from a noose, strangled to death, but that wasn’t how it happened. She had just pushed him over the edge of the landing and he was dangling from the landing, hanging on to her, when she let go of him and he fell to the ground. Well, he just lay there, flat on his back not moving. I called my master for help but he didn’t take me seriously. “Come quickly,” I shouted, “my mistress has killed Santa.” Do you know what my master did? He just laughed. I was beside myself. Then my mistress sat down with me and I said, “Don’t you come near me. You just killed Santa.” Then she rubbed my chest, so I started to forgive her. She explained to me that this wasn’t the real Santa, it was just a pretend one that you put up for decoration. It wasn’t alive at all, so she could kill it. It sounded fairly plausible so I went down stairs and sniffed all his vital parts and sure enough, she was right, so it was all a bit of a false alarm and maybe there will be presents after all. You will be pleased to know he is now safely hanging from the landing and has pretty flashing lights that light up the rope he is holding. It looks as though he is trying to climb up. It’s rather fun and thank goodness he isn’t dead.