Good bloomin' lord! Can you believe that "Father Christmas" is 40 years old? There must have been something rather special pumped into the water supply in 1973 as so many brilliant and timeless children's books were first published that year ("The Tiger Who Came To Tea" also celebrated its 40th Anniversary this year, woohoo!)

From Raymond Briggs, the genius behind "The Snowman" - something that you can't quite imagine not being on telly over Christmas, comes this tale of a thoroughly bloomin' grumpy Santa and his preparations for his busiest day of the year.

The book doesn't use a lot of text or dialogue, but it's a brilliantly funny book nonetheless. Briggs has a gift for stunning comic timing, and "Father Christmas" has so many giggle-out-loud moments that we've always loved reading it at this time of the year, imagining the real St Nick struggling with his expanding waistline, his ever-increasingly large sack of presents, and of course his restless and fidgety reindeer.

The poor old fellah needs a holiday. Say, there's a good idea for a book...oh.


Charlotte's best bit: Why oh why, of all the great scenes in this, does she always think the bit where Santa is sitting on the loo is the best bit?

Daddy's Favourite bit: Santa's near miss with a jumbo jet. Bloomin' planes!

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.