Nat Locke: Nothing is perfect this Christmas season, well, except perhaps this one thing . . .

Well, we’re a week into December, so I figured it was time for a little festive vibe check. How are we travelling?

My thoughts and prayers are currently with the kid whose mum I overheard saying “It’s not that Santa doesn’t love you, it’s just that he has other kids to see” as the poor poppet snivelled away from the shopping centre grotto.

For my own amusement, I spent perhaps a little bit too long observing the queue for a shopping centre Santa the other day. Don’t worry. I pretended I was browsing at Mecca because I didn’t want to look like a weirdo.

But what I did see didn’t accurately represent the joy of the season, I’ll tell you that much.

Firstly, kids hate queuing. Hell, I hate queuing. And parents who have to constantly tell their complaining progeny that it’ll be their turn soon are definitely not passing the vibe check.

And that’s before they even approach Santa himself.

From my intensive and slightly creepy research, it became apparent that kids fall into two camps: those who are keen to tell Santa what they want for Christmas, and those who are abjectly terrified at the prospect of being in the immediate vicinity of a large red stranger.

And I’m here to tell you, there is nothing funnier than a kid screaming next to a beaming, rosy-cheeked shopping centre Santa Claus. Keep those pictures forever, please.

But I can’t hang around Santa grotto queues forever. Not without attracting security’s attention, anyway.

How’s the festive vibe at home?

Well, if my Instagram feed is anything to go by, the fact that December 1 fell on a Sunday heralded a flurry of tree erections. That sounded way more wrong than it should have. You know what I mean.

I’m ignoring all those friends of mine who put their trees up in late October, and then subsequently sent me “news” stories that claimed that people who put their trees up early are happier. I think they’re just high on tinsel, or something.

Anyway, I was pleased to see that the majority of people I know waited until December to put their trees up, which is a great reminder of why we are friends.

Also, I was equally thrilled to observe that they have mostly eschewed the TikTok trend of making their trees so perfect that children aren’t allowed anywhere near them.

Where’s the fun in putting up a family Christmas tree if the family isn’t permitted to take part in the process in case they put an ornament in the wrong place, or — God forbid — want to hang something homemade on it. Eww.

This is lunacy, obviously.

Where’s the festive joy in making your tree look like one in a shop? Give me wonky, little misshapen ornaments crafted by fat little fingers any day. Something with popsticks and cotton wool and an absolute shed-load of glitter. Stars with three, or maybe nine, points. Snowflakes made out of paper doilies. And poorly stapled paper chains. I love them all.

In fact, those odd little decorations are a bit of an allegory for so many other aspects of our life.

Somehow, we’ve managed to get too wound up in how everything looks — on social media, especially — and we’ve forgotten to embrace the true beauty and authenticity of the moment.

And that’s the pride in the shiny, chubby little face who is hanging their handmade ornament crookedly on the tree. I’ll take that over a Venetian glass bauble any day.

Well, I don’t have kids, so I don’t have to.

I haven’t even put my tree up because I’m going overseas for Christmas, but I did buy a little silver reindeer and I fully intend to plonk it on the mantelpiece above the fireplace for a truly festive display.

That’s my vibe check.

I’m also agreeing to meet up with people for pre-Christmas drinks, which is more festivity than I can usually muster at this point in the year.

Once the round of work Christmas parties winds up (there is quite a number of them) I’m about ready to crawl into a darkened room and just be quiet for a bit.

But this year, I’ve committed to catching up with a bunch of people from the dog park, some old uni friends, the girls from book club and that’s all before I jump on a plane next week. Festive indeed.

So, just try to remember, as we hurtle headlong into the Christmas panic season, that nothing has to be perfect.

But a picture of a kid screaming at Santa is as close to perfect as you can get.