IT makes you realise how quickly the years past when one year you are taking your granddaughter to see Santa Claus and then seemingly in no time at all she is going to her first school prom. The Santa visit I remember well. She was three-years-old and we took her down to the local shopping arcade to visit the grotto. Her brother accompanied us, having been threatened with major punishments if he made any mention of disbelief in Father Christmas, pointed out that his beard was false, that he bore a distinct resemblance to one of the security guards in the arcade or that he was wearing trainers. He was a fairly cynical child even then, can't think where he got that from, and probably would have needed both written and photographic evidence to prove to himself satisfactorily that Father Christmas actually existed. Mind you, he suspended disbelief when it came to writing Santa a letter and posting it to Lapland. His list was long and complicated and quite often included the price, page and item numbers from the Argos catalogue. Whereas other children cut their teeth on Janet and John books at school, he relied on the teachings of Argos and could read aloud the lurid descriptions of the latest space toy while others were still trying to work out why Janet and John were helping their mother with the ironing. So, with a somewhat reluctant sceptic in tow, we reached the end of the queue for the grotto. This began with a slightly wonky entrance painted with figures from Snow White and the Seven Dwarves, each dwarf uglier than the last one and not entirely conducive to urging a three-year-old to come in. Although she had been looking forward to her visit, she became somewhat apprehensive when she reached the tunnel which lead into the grotto. it was painted dark green, smelt decidedly funny and had all the atmosphere of a British Rail waiting room. The tunnel lead into a cavern; more flimsy pasteboard and nursery rhyme characters and a couple of reindeers with lop sided antlers. From the bowels of the earth around us came the tinny sounds of Jingle Bells endlessly repeated. This appeared to be Santa's waiting room, because there was no sign of the man himself, he was reached through a low entrance into another slightly better lit cavern. At the entrance to this was one of his elves. I say one, I should say the only elf because he didn't appear to have any more. This elf was ushering groups of parents and child or children though the arch, one group at a time. When my granddaughter caught sight of the elf and realised it was nearly our turn, she began to cry. I nearly cried myself, because he was around six feet four tall, dressed from head to foot in a tight green outfit and had a floppy green elf hat on his head with a little bell attached to it. I can only imagine that when the advertisement was put in to urge people to apply for an elf job there could have either been very few applicants or the people in charge were exceptionally aware of being accused of height discrimination and gave the job to the best qualified. Which made you wonder what the other applicants were like. As he loomed over us my granddaughter made a strenuous effort to escape but was finally persuaded into Santa's den, where the man himself sat on cotton wool snow which matched his beard and yo ho hoed a couple of times before handing her a parcel from a bin marked girls, with no apostrophe, which always irks me. Then we were ushered out through another sickly green tunnel, my grandson being grasped firmly by the arm because I noted he was taking in all the details of Santa's less than clean jolly red costume, his large red nose and the fact that he was wearing Wellington boots. 'Not one single word,' I hissed at him, 'or I'll throw you to the elf.' Afterwards I felt quite sorry for the elf and hoped he took along a change of clothes to go home in afterwards. I'd hate to think of him wandering through the streets looking like an extra for a Robin Hood film and meeting all the somewhat merry people making their way to the various clubs and pubs en-route. Do kids like a visit to Santa? Well, I think it's rather odd that we spend the rest of the year telling them not to speak to strangers and then expect them to trust a green streak and gloomy bearded man wearing rubber boots and red jacket with his lunch down the front. Perhaps I've just become a teeny bit more cynical. As I do every year, I suddenly realised that the countdown to Christmas, as mentioned in last week's paper, has become critical. It's all very well writing advice for other people but what's the good if you don't follow it yourself. I visited a friend at the weekend, who can usually be relied on to be as tardy as I am. To my annoyance she had the gall to tell me that she had done all her Christmas shopping on November 10 while staying with her daughter and not only that, everything was wrapped and labelled. I can be forgiven for thinking she looked a trifle smug when she handed me my Christmas card, even though she says that she hadn't meant to do any shopping at all but was persuaded by the range of gifts available. I come into the category of last minute desperation gifts on some occasions, although I will get into a bit of a rush this coming week and at least I buy totally locally. I haven't got time to join the city thongs, although in fact I'd rather be dragged screaming over hot coals than have to put up with fighting my way in and out of shops amongst some of the most bad tempered people on earth. Only Paris has the edge on those. We last minute gift buyers, and it has to be said that most of them tend to be men, know that we are suckers when it comes to snapping up that little, or usually big, something that the shop keeper has been praying will go before Christmas so that he doesn't get lumbered with it for the next 12 months. Giant toys are favourite with men who have forgotten to buy anything and gratefully spot an enormous and very ugly teddy wearing a Santa hat in the window of the corner shop. The fact that their toddler may scream in horror when finding a huge lime green bear sitting on the end of his or her bed in the morning doesn't occur to them. I'm not immune to this. I have been known to snap up large furry creatures, especially at airports, where they are placed strategically right next to the cash desk so that as you are guiltily lining up to pay for the duty free goods you are buying for yourself you feel you ought to buy at least something for other people. When it comes to last minute purchases, men tend to make for the perfume counters of big stores and throw themselves on the mercy of the assistants. This is a big mistake because these assistants have no mercy, or certainly not when it comes to us women, and are only after flogging the biggest bottle of the scent they can. They are very good though, and in next to no time your man will have been relieved of quite a lot of his hard earned cash in return for what seems to him a very small gift box. On the other hand, if he should remark that the gift doesn't seem to be big enough, he will find himself in possession of the Christmas gift set, considerably more expensive and containing the scent, something called a body spray, a lotion with the same fragrance and maybe a bar of soap. He can only pray that the lady in his life likes the said fragrance. The said lady, however, can count herself lucky that her man went into a department store at all. Otherwise she could have ended up with, as I once did, a gaudily wrapped bottle of scent labelled Channel Number Five, bought by my son from a street seller one Christmas Eve. It had, in the words of parfumiers, a hint of jasmine, wood ash and freesia, but mixed with Dettol and slightly overdone sprouts.