CHILDREN got their first chance to give Santa this year’s Christmas list at a shopping centre.

Santa and his elves stationed themselves at a magical woodland grotto in the Marlands Shopping Centre in Southampton.

Dozens of children queued up for their chance to meet the man himself and were told the story of The Night Before Christmas by an elf.

As Santa was asleep and snoring when children arrived he had to be woken up by the children shouting at him.

Children could also get their faces painted, decorated cup cakes and gingerbread men and enter competitions to win prizes.

This is the first year that the grotto, which is now on the ground floor of the centre, is free.

Santa will be on hand to meet youngsters on the weekends for the next two weeks and then every day from December 5 until Christmas Eve.

The shopping centre celebrated the switch on of its Christmas lights last Thursday with an Aladdin-themed evening which attracted dozens of families with a snake charmer and ‘flying’ magic carpets.