THEY say York is the perfect setting for a Dickensian Christmas. And they're right.

Pay for festive lights? Harrumph. Bring Santa here for the children? Bah, humbug!

Thanks to a face-saving donation from Nestl Rowntree, York raised enough money to string up its illuminations. But now Santa has left in a reindeer-powered huff because the popular St Nicholas Fayre has nicked his spot in St Sampson's Square.

Surely however there is an imaginative York shopkeeper who can persuade him to bring his grotto to a corner of their store?

Updated: 11:45 Tuesday, November 09, 2004