Father Christmas of North Pole fame is said to be fuming like a well mulled wine after a rumour has spread that he doesn’t exist.

This malicious slur is thought to have begun when an online teen teased a faithful child via Snapchat.

We were unable to contact the mercurial cherub himself, however we did speak to his chief reindeer, Rudy Rednose,

“It’s disgusting! Just because some jumped-up teen thinks he knows better than us adults and wanted to upset one of our treasured customers!

“Santa has just one thing to say: this is Fake News!”

“I mean, come ON?!” a visibly rattled Rudy continued. “How do those presents get there every Chrimbo morning eh?! You think all those parents, every single one of them, goes out, buys the things and *magically* wraps them all by themselves?! What are the chances of that eh? Give. Me. A. Break!

“This has really upset our man at home. We’ve had to hide the booze to stop him self-medicating. One night I even caught him at 3am poised to cut his beard off! He seems to be recovering now, but he needs all the children in the world to rally round and believe in him again.

“The elves say keep sending those letters as this hasn’t affected present production capacity. We are all set to have everything ready to go on 24th and god-willing Nicky will be hot to trot. ”

All the good children are advised to still hang their socks up on Christmas Eve and be super well-behaved.

As long as enough of us have faith, Father Christmas will still be paying his annual visit to their homes.