"... and a happy New Year"

At the end of grotto shows particularly if families aren't getting the message and departing I sing just: "And a happy New Year" without the preceding lines from We Wish you a Merry Christmas. Yet another Dad festive legacy and a handy form of conclusion.

Boxing

Pretending to box by having one hand in a fist and the other cupped just below the chin. I think he picked this up from his days boxing at Reading School, where he was taught to defend his chin - maybe the cupped hand was how it felt in the boxing glove. I found myself adopting this position while messing around with Aidan the other day and he's adopted it now - us both punching each others cupped hands, so we don't actually clock each other on the chin. This was raised back in 2011 as part of a longer list, but worth a trotting out again I think.

Solid ground

Polly and I entered the grotto to the strains of Johnny Mathis' 1976 Christmas chart-topper (I'm back in hospital radio DJ mode here), When a Child is Born. Dad used to sing the line "I'm on solid ground" every time Mum presented a dessert.

The song also always reminds me of cycling back from Bearwood on dark country lanes (now Lower Earley), my sheepskin gloves building up a layer of frost. I sang the song to stop myself getting too spooked.