Barton Grange: Searching for Santa.

Thousands of children are already enrolled to see Father Christmas in his garden centre grotto – but the search is still on for the main man.?The real Santa Claus is so busy preparing presents and readying the reindeer in the North Pole, that Barton Grange Garden Centre in Brock is advertising the ?10-an-hour position, which lasts from November 25 to December 24.

Planning for the Christmas period started way back in August, as Barton Grange looks to scoop the title of best Christmas display in a UK garden centre for the seventh consecutive year.

And although the polar bears and penguins are in place and the giant snowmen are dancing, there?s still work to be done for Father Christmas?s arrival.

This includes installing hundreds of thousands of decorations, baubles, bows and festive figures to be priced and displayed, as well as miles of lights to be hung all around the centre; the Grotto to be prepared; and suits to be dry cleaned.

Kate Ford, marketing manager, said: ?Our aim always is to achieve the ?wow factor? and to appeal to all ages.

?The key to achieving this is lots of planning, attention to detail and an extremely creative and imaginative team who create displays that really have to be seen to be believed.

?We have a different theme for Christmas each year and we let our imaginations go wild really.

?This year we?re looking at Christmas through the decades and the displays include iconic images from each era, so there?s a bit of nostalgia there amongst all the glitz.?

Two thousand youngsters have snapped up their grotto places since September, and another 800 are expected to enrol before December 25.

A team of up to six elves will be helping out in the grotto, to be recruited from garden centre?s full-time staff.