Subtly Narcissist Gently Absurd Simply Simple. “The magic is always wonderful,” she adds, “but it’s the reality that I love and find much more remarkable.” Through Kate’s photographs, we see glimpses of an almost underworld, a place many of us don’t see – whether through circumstance or some kind of subconscious dismissal. Perhaps, even as adults, we don’t want the magic to end. Seeing Santa in an underground car park, for example, locking his vehicle, doesn’t quite present the same mental image we might hang onto.

Reflecting on her experience of Santa as a child, Kate only remembers asking the Jolly Old Saint Nicholas for chocolate. “It was that cardboard stocking-shaped collection pack with netting over it,” she says.

In her household, Santa visited their street every December. “He came around on a sleigh with the Lions group collecting money for charity. He was in a special grotto area of the headmaster’s office at the junior school, and we’d all go in and get a present – it was usually quite hot and smelly in there from too many bodies!”