Father Christmas by Raymond Briggs (Picture Puffin)

If you believe the hype in the supermarket, the constant barrage of yuletide recipies, gift sets appearing on shelves nudging the Halloween stuff aside - it's almost Christmas.

So we'll be covering a lot more christmas books over the next few months and no coverage would be complete without at least one or two Raymond Briggs books.

"Father Christmas" may sit under the shadow of Briggs' other legendary children's classic "The Snowman" but I love it, not just because it presents Santa as a bit of an old grump (who uses the rather child-unfriendly word 'Bloomin!' a lot!) and after watching the TV adaptation it's impossible to imagine Santa as having anyone else's voice other than Mel Smith's, but because it's just such a cosy feeling book.

Santa exists in the real world and has all the real world problems of trying to get down very narrow chimneys (where the heck is the chimney on an igloo?) or dealing with bizarre-shaped presents. But he's a likeable soul despite his curmudgeonly appearance, and we soon warm to his plight of having to deliver a giant sled full of presents across the whole world.

Charlotte loves this book mostly because Santa loves his animals (Reindeer, dog and cat) and of course because being nice to Santa means more presents - right?

Charlotte's best bit: Santa feeding his reindeer

Daddy's favourite bit: Santa meeting the milkman in the early hours of the morning.