Reindeer and ‘reverse Santa’ to bring festive cheer to shoppers

REINDEER and a “reverse Santa” will appear at the late-night Christmas shopping event in Caversham.

On December 5, St Martin’s Precinct will be decorated with twinkling lights and festive music will be played while shops will have special offers.

The event will also feature artisan market stalls and food and drink vendors running from about 5pm to 9pm, although shop owners may vary their opening times further.

Now in its sixth year, one difference will be the arrival of live reindeer.

Organiser Jodie Anderton, who manages Caversham’s artisan and farmers’ market, said: “We’ve never had reindeer before, so we’re really excited about that one. I mean, how can you not be excited about reindeer?

“It’s a really lovely event. Everyone comes out for it and the Christmas lights will be on by that point, so it will feel very festive.

“It brings together the community and, for the traders, it’s a real chance for them to get a bit of visibility.” Another change this year is the presence of Spill, the wine and cocktail bar on the corner where House of Cards used to be, also run by Ms Anderton.

She said: “That adds a bit more of a drinking vibe — it was just an empty space last year. Now there’s going to be more of a buzz on the corner.”

Within the precinct, a selection of market traders will be dotted around offering locally made gifts.

Some local schools and choirs will perform 15-minute sets of singing or stage sing-along nativity performances.

There will be free mulled wine for shoppers and the business will be decking out their shops to help visitors get into the festive spirit.

Ms Anderton, who owns Nood Stores in Church Street, which sells environmentally friendly gifts, is also looking into having a wreath-making section in the store on the night. The event largely buoys up independent businesses, although this year Costa is also offering a hot chocolate stand out the front of its store.

One of the returning shops this year is Fourbears Books in Prospect Street, whose main attraction will be its “reverse Santa”.

Rather than giving children a gift, he accepts gifts from children — either new items or like-new — which are then passed along to youngsters in need.

This Santa is working to support Reading Family Aid, which helps children living with poverty and other disadvantages in the Reading area.

If visitors wish to offer a gift but do not have a suitable one, Fourbears will sell them its books at cost so they can be donated then and there.

Alex Forbes, owner of the shop, said the Reverse Santa has fetched “a van load” of gifts for less fortunate children.

“Reading Family Aid does such a fantastic job,” he said.

“It’s heartbreaking that they’re in a position they have to help thousands of children. The reverse Santa is just a small thing that we can do to do our bit.”

It was Santa himself who came up with the idea of offering his services for this event, as the shop wasn’t charging a ticket price.

Mr Forbes said: “We were really excited by the idea and we were blown away by the response in the first year. It has been great ever since.

“It’s one of our most successful nights — it competes with any of the Saturdays in the lead-up to Christmas.

“Our Santa is brilliant and the kids absolutely love him. So, it’s something we really look forward to.”

Santa is set to head to Fourbears at 5pm, which expects to trade until about 8pm.

The plan is for Santa to “pop down to just check on his reindeer” after he’s been to Fourbears.

Record store Pop Classics is another one of the shops opening late.

This is run by Damian Jones, “a lifelong record collector” who also works as a consultant for the Record Collector Price Guide and Channel 4’s Posh Pawn. It will be having live music in the store, just like last year.

Mr Jones said: “Last year was brilliant, it was really buzzing.

“We had a Portuguese food stall down and we’ll probably have them again this year.

“We get a lot of curious people who haven’t been to the shop before during these events. Especially when there’s music in the store, they come to see what’s going on.

“It’s a nice opportunity to offer our services to people at later time and bring new people to the shop.”

Caversham Baptist Church will also host an indoor market for small businesses.

From mid-November to December, shoppers will also be able to collect stamps in return for shopping at Caversham’s independent businesses.

Once they have collected
10 stamps, shoppers will be entered into a raffle to win a hamper put together by the businesses taking part.