Caroline Verdon: I believe everyone has a Christmas miracle story

It doesn’t have to be a huge “and that was the moment I met my birth parents” or “and I knew from that one look we’d be together for the rest of our lives” kind of event. Sometimes the miracles are only small but they’re there.

My Christmas miracle is as minor as they come but it filled me with Christmas joy nonetheless. A few years ago, having been on a health kick ahead of Christmas, I’d been trying to avoid the office vending machine.

It was in the kitchen right next to the kettle so each morning when I’d grab myself a cuppa it was there staring at me. Specifically, it was the Kitkat Chunkys that I had an issue with. They would call out to me, clearly knowing how weak willed I was but somehow I managed to resist.

I decided however, that on the last show before Christmas, I would bring in the extortionate 80p the machine was demanding and I would have one and I was very much looking forward to it.

Fast forward to Christmas Eve and I was waiting at the bus stop to head into work. Around Christmas time the bus company but on ‘last bus home’ buses at 4am which conveniently was when I needed to start my job.

The bus arrived and on I clambered along with a load of merry people all looking a bit worse for wear, one of whom was a lady who was by herself and probably in her early 20s. When she got on it became apparent that she didn’t have enough money to get to where she needed. I had enough cash for my fare and a spare pound for the Kitkat, but I figured her getting home safely was probably more important than my pathological love of chocolate so I offered my spare pound and the driver let her on.

The hole that would have been filled with wafery chocolately goodness was going to have to be filled with that feeling of warmth that you get when helping out a stranger. It was a small price to pay.

Anyway. I arrived at work and popped into the kitchen to make myself a cuppa when all of us sudden out of nowhere there was a thud. I looked around the room and the only place it could possibly have come from was the vending machine. I walked over, and there, in the tray, ready to be eaten, was a kitkat chunky. It fell out all by itself. It was a Christmas miracle!

My dad’s Christmas miracle is way better, mainly because it involves a Father Christmas costume, a toddler group and a convicted and incarcerated criminal.

Back in the early 90s my dad used to teach maths and IT in a local prison as part of a scheme to get prisoners qualifications so that on release they’d hopefully leave behind their previous life of crime.

In his spare time my dad also used to run a local youth group. Each year the youth group would have a Christmas party and my dad would be the person who ended up dressing up as Father Christmas and handing out some presents. Word spread and before you knew it he was signed up to do the same at the local playgroup and the local school and the local – you get the idea.On the day the Christmas miracle occurred, my dad was really busy – he had his teaching in the prison followed by two back-to-back Santa appearances so he headed to the prison with his Father Christmas suit in the back of his car.

As soon as his lessons had finished he raced back only to find that he’d somehow managed to lock his keys inside the car. It meant he couldn’t get in but more importantly, couldn’t get to his suit. He called various companies all of whom said it’d take them several hours to get there but he didn’t have several hours – he had 25 minutes before he was due to ho ho ho his way into the nearest town hall. It was no good calling a taxi as where would he get a suit from at that short notice?

All of a sudden, out of nowhere, a prison guard appeared. Dad explained the situation and off he popped inside the prison, returning 10 minutes later with a rather threatening looking man in handcuffs who amongst other things was also in prison for stealing cars. Quick as a flash he worked his illegal magic and the car door was open, the prisoner was taken back inside and my dad was bearded up and ready to go.

It’s nativity season...

It’s that time of year when nativity season strikes. The sale of packets of tissues increase as mums and dads try but fail to hold back the tears as their little ones perform on stage – some singing songs, others with lines and some even with elaborate dances.

Last year Ant’s daughter was an angel. He was a bit gutted as she was one of seven angels but after seeing the play was just grateful she hadn’t been cast as the Christmas pudding – a role which involved wearing a spherical costume and hat with a stalk coming out the top.

This year he was proper excited “she’s an absolute shoe-in for Mary” he kept saying. Sadly it was not to be as this year the school chose to cast the same Mary as last year (I know, talk about convroversial). What did that make his daughter? Another year as an angel? Nope. She got downgraded to the Christmas pud. She did have a line this time though so that was an improvement! This showbiz lark is hard! Turns out she wasn’t the only person in a dud role. Tina in Beeston called and when she was seven she got the part of “the person who puts the tinsel on the tree”. Darren in Armley once played the well known traditional nativity character “the hermit crab” and Louise in Colton’s son played an alien. All these parts are still better than mine. I was once told I was “sort of” getting the lead role. What they meant by that was that I was to stand backstage and sing whilst the pretty popular girl who actually got the lead role mimed. I didn’t even get to come on for the bows.

Going wild for Cash for Kids

This week Ant and I got to relive our Supermarket Sweep fantasies and go wild in B&M in Middleton.

Our charity Cash For Kids is knee deep in its Christmas campaign Mission Christmas where essentially we set out to make sure that no child in West Yorkshire wakes up without a present. It’s been tough this year as we’ve had more applications than ever before and less donations.

Last week we appealed to anyone who could spare any cash to donate a new unwrapped gift or to donate cash so we could buy gifts and B&M in Middleton came up trumps!

They gave Ant and I a trolley each and let us and some helpers do a 30 second sweep of the store and we got over £1500 worth of gifts which is incredible! Thank you, thank you, thank you!

If you’d like to donate or find out more radioaire.co.uk/mission has the details.

Caroline Verdon is one half of the breakfast show on Radio Aire. You can hear Caroline and Ant between 6-10am every weekday morning.