Exclusive: Read Russell Brand's open letter to Father Christmas

Dear Father Christmas (if that's your real name - do you prefer Santa? Saint Nic? Babushka?)

Look, I'll be honest - I'm not even sure that you're real anymore - I got some pretty solid evidence that the Millennium Falcon in '86 was bought by my Mum. I found it under the stairs in a pretty extensive and frantic search I conducted that, frankly, raised more questions than it answered. I found a lot things on that quest that would been best left undiscovered, particularly under her bed. The humanity.

Are you real? And this annual gift giving bonanza that you've  masterminded - what's it all about? I've got some obvious questions around physics (rotund tum vs narrow chimney, travel time etc) and some ideological questions about the net human gain from a jolly celestial benefactor granting consumer goods to mark a pagan/Christian celebration.

I mean isn't the idea that you can solve problems with the acquisition of external,  physical objects in itself THE BIGGEST PROBLEM WE HAVE?

I don't meant to question your credentials or your intentions but it's common knowledge that the Coca Cola corporation changed your outfit from a healthy, hearty woodland green to livid crimson to match that God-awful fucking lorry they storm into town in. "Holidays are coming?" It's a tinsel strewn apocalypse if you ask me.

Of course none of this matters if you're not real. But then what is real? Britain aside from our shared belief that it's Britain is simply some soil in a salty sea, Christmas, a consensual appropriation of all manner of baffling values, from materialism, through Christianity via paganism - probably agricultural in origin ultimately. I mean is it? You'd know. Or is it to do with astronomy?

I suppose what you are is a secular God for the age we live in - the age of individualism and consumerism. But  those things too are built on belief.

So like all external phenomena you must be the realisation of a subtle energy form that is manifest through consciousness.

That doesn't explain why my Scalectrix (second hand?) smelt of static, my Subbuteo figures were all white and ET's light up finger didn't work. 

Also why did you let things get so out of hand with Rudolph? Couldn't you have stepped in earlier? Do you even care about your workforce?

I don't need to ask anything of you, you've been very generous (although a little ungrateful - you never finished any of the biscuits we left - or the carrot and those talcum powder footprints on the stairs in retrospect seem highly dubious) as a taller child I now realise that we manifest our universe from the sublime and mysterious energy force behind all discernible reality (I mentioned it earlier) so we each have an individual, "inner Father Christmas" to commune with so I'll ask him directly. For a BMX.

Anyway, I'm rambling. Thank you for Jeremy Corbynn, Charlotte Church and the new series of Peep Show. 

Please consider returning to a traditional green tunic.

Yours in Christ

Ol Russ

X

Letters Live runs at Freemasons’ Hall, London 10-15th March 2016. Each show always features a completely different array of great performers, reading remarkable letters written over the centuries and from around the world. Head to letterslive.com for more info.

(Top image: Rex)