He'll no doubt be currently making his list and checking it twice.

But Santa has taken some time off from preparing for his Christmas deliveries by rescuing a woman after she suffered a dramatic fall on ice.

The pedestrian slipped on a frosty pavement in Watford before taking a painful fall flat on her back, sending her bags flying as she did so.

Ouch! A woman walking on the slippery pavement takes a painful fall onto the hard icy pavement in Watford, Hertfordshire

A video showed how the car in front skidded to a halt next to the woman, before Father Christmas launched into action in the Hertfordshire town.

Santa immediately leapt out of the car and braved the dangerously icy conditions, just about managing to stop himself from falling.

Dave Cordoza captured the charming scene on his car's dashcam outside a Tesco supermarket in Watford, before uploading it to YouTube yesterday.

He wrote: 'Coming out of Tesco, I caught this kind act on my dashcam. I did laugh when Santa popped out of the car. The woman seemed to be okay.'

The unnamed Santa picked up the lady's bags and even put her hat back on her head as she recovered from her fall.

Santa to the rescue: The car in front immediately skids to a halt and the driver tackles the ice to help pick the woman up off the ice

The icy conditions were remnants of this Sunday's 'snow bomb' which saw up to a foot of snow fall in parts of the UK, leaving thousands of schools closed.

Monday night was the coldest night of the year when temperatures fell to -13C (9F) in Shropshire, which was colder than Moscow.

Dozens of schools are shut for a third consecutive day today - as Britain prepares for a 'rollercoaster' of temperatures over the weekend.

The Met Office has issued a yellow weather warning for ice covering nearly the entire country today, which is in force until 11am.