Horsham town centre, with Christmas fast approaching, has fittingly redecorated with beautiful ice-coloured fairy lights in the streets giving a stunning blue illumination to the roads below. Inside Swan Walk wreaths and baubles hang from the ceiling. All the shops have stunning displays of their winter and Christmas products, here and there you’ll find an inviting deal, and the perfect gift for that one difficult person to buy for, this time of year is ideal gift purchasing season, or alternatively the ideal marketing season.

However, by far the most exciting part of Christmas in Horsham, is finding the answer to the question “What’s the incredibly unrealistic singing animatronic going to be this year?” We have had Snowmen, Elves, Father Christmas himself. This year, for the first time, we have a singing reindeer which is almost constantly surrounded by a flock of young children and their parents (who have almost certainly heard enough). There is also, a new feature to this reindeer, which none of the other singers have had: a count down, which is far less exciting than one would hope. It counts in minutes that prevents the joyous chorus of kids counting from 10-0 seconds before the deer wakes up to serenade them with Christmas tunes, that they will almost certainly know all the words to.

The choir of children crowded around by the singing deer is a guaranteed sight everyday up until the day the friendly animatronic has to be taken away once the Christmas season passes.

Eleanor Mackintosh, Millais