Although attention at Solent City’s sell-out Christmas concert rightly focused on the singing, the evening also saw the announcement of the club’s very first “Christmas Jumper of the Year” award.
A committee of celebrity ERFs (elves, reindeer and fairies) spent the evening scrutinising the entries. Mr S Claus, Chair of the Committee, noted that the standard of entries had been very high. “In terms of artistic merit”, he boomed, “all the jumpers far exceeded any of the recent Turner prize entries. This is mainly because you could tell what the objects were meant to be – jumpers, obviously. We also considered the underlying socio-economic and political message conveyed by the various jumpers, as well as the deportment, grooming and overall style of the models (or singers to be precise), wearing them.”

Mr Claus said that choosing a winner had been even more difficult than hitting the first note of “Jingle Bells”. Dave Potts was in the running thanks to his “Portchester Illuminations” jumper. But two entries clearly stood out: those of Steve Morris and Les Gibbons. In the words of the committee, Steve’s iconic “Is Christmas Over Yet” pullover brilliantly summarised the “Bah Humbug” school of celebrations and clearly evoked the despair of consumers everywhere when faced with yet another turkey dinner.


In contrast, as committee member R. Deer noted, Les’s “Scary Santa” brilliantly managed to convey no social message whatsoever, but was indeed extremely scary. Seven members of the audience had fainted when first seeing it, and two were still receiving counselling. This was enough to clinch it, making Les the first recipient of the coveted “Christmas Jumper of the Year” award. Thanking the judges, Les offered a sincere “Ho Ho Ho”, in a very low B flat of course.