And there's more...

[angelophile]

Santa came within a whisker of a triumphant appearance at the annual Carols by Candelight – but it was the jolly man himself, not the thousands of revellers, who were left hanging when his beard got caught in a pulley.

Despite a time-honoured tradition of successful aerial descents, usually down chimneys, Father Christmas was left dangling suspended above the stage in front of an estimated 20,000 crowd at Wellington's Westpac Stadium on Saturday.

The lights had to be dimmed to avoid upsetting children in the crowd as staff worked to untangle the man in the red suit.

In one of those moments where if something can go wrong, it will, Santa ended up suspended in midair unable to move, his beard caught in a pulley.

"There was a sense of inevitability about it . . ." Santa Stefan Chapman said yesterday. "Once I jumped and the beard became entangled there was very little I could do. I just thought, `Well I'm stuffed now'."

He did, however, manage a few meek waves.

Guest fiddler, Nick Brown, was called in to provide a musical interlude while the lights were dimmed and the big man unceremoniously hoisted back to safety.

Santa blamed the mishap on a long and busy year. He had not had as much time to groom "this year's very bushy beard" as he would have liked.

"I think come Summer 06 Santa might be going for a closer-cropped goatee look."