SWEARING SANTA GETS THE SACK!

The Santa at Maldon's Grotto, in Essex, was given his 'marching orders' after swearing at children for taking the baubles off the Christmas tree. 

The man who can not be named (Mr S) was 'frustrated' that every child was 'fiddling' with the Christmas decorations. One of the elves stated, 'Mr S had asked the Grotto manager, several times, to install a rule where no one could touch the tinsel but the manager refused. So that was it. Every time anyone walked past the tree, Santa would twitch. The smaller the child the more pronounced the twitch.'

The hired cleaner also made a comment, 'it's such a shame but I don't know why Maldon Town employed a Santa who cares more about tree baubles than he does about the children. Even I wasn't allowed to touch the tree!'

One mother complained after her son was told that if he didn't let go of the bauble 'his (ducking) head was going to become a bauble!' She was quite 'depressed', 'Santa's not supposed to say those words! That would never have happened in my day!'

Mr S declined to comment but the Maldon Mayor made a statement, 'we don't condone this sort of language but we can understand the frustration of Mr S: we've had ten baubles, five bits of holly and 8 candy canes stolen in the last week. Children need to stop touching the Christmas tree. We don't worry about the tree falling over- we've stuck it down with blue-tac as we're VERY Health and Safety conscious- we just DON'T want our Santas going round the bend!'