It’s really Christmas and jingle bells all the way when you get to meet Santa Claus in his village — Rovaniemi — in Lapland, the northernmost region of Finland. Here’s what happens next…
Image: Shutterstock/Roman Babakin.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl who believed in Santa Claus. She hung stockings on Christmas eve and waited for gifts. She knew Santa was a generous good fella. He rode a reindeer sleigh and trudged the world with his goodie bag. She loved Santa. She believed he existed.
Then, one day wisdom — and adulthood — dawned upon her. Santa was busted. He was fiction. There is no Santa Claus. That gift in the stocking was actually from Ma.
The world’s Christmas capital
Many summers later, that little girl — that’s me now — decided to fly to Rovaniemi (Finland) to meet Santa Claus. The official Santa, as they call him. In the real Santa’s village and the world’s Christmas capital, as they call it. A village barely four miles south of the Arctic Circle that has more reindeers than humans. It is the heart of Lapland; it is where the Northern Lights dazzle the black sky. Here, snow stays on the ground 175 days a year. December is dark, with barely six minutes of sunshine daily. That’s where Santa lives.
Walking through 12 inches of white snow, the world turned red. Bright red. I know Santa loves his red pajamas with snow-white trim, but I wasn’t expecting an overdose of red in his village.
Red was everywhere. Lustrous red of the poinsettias. Elves in red pixie hats. Tubby snowman with a red scarf around its neck. Red posters on Santa’s door. On the wooden signboard that read Joulopukki Santa Claus, a cartoonish Santa looked amusing in a twisted red cap.
Here’s Santa!
Before entering the cave-like pathway that leads to Santa, I peeped into the Santa Claus Post Office that receives nearly half a million letters every year. Here, the elves stamp all post with a special Arctic Circle postmark. The elves were busy, and I was in no mood to handwrite a postcard.
I quickly slipped into a vermillion red Press jacket and embarked on a labyrinthine road to Santa that was cluttered with, what else, but Santa memorabilia. I was carrying a wish in my heart and wanted to see Santa quickly. Who really cared about the memorabilia!
A few minutes later, I saw him — Santa, the real Santa, the one with a guttural ho-ho-ho, the one who comes on a jingling sleigh… But this Santa looked stodgy in his red pajamas and humungous felt shoes. I was distracted by his silvery and shiny (read: nylon) beard… That day Santa had several visitors; everyone queued up quietly for a handshake. Santa looked tired. He certainly wasn’t the jolly good fella that everyone sings about.
I thought Santa was a generous bloke — he fulfilled wishes but when my turn came, all I got was a red round sticker. That’s it. That’s it, Santa? I could not whisper my wish, for Santa was busy sticking red stickers on others… My wish remained unsaid. Santa had no seconds to spare.
Santa Claus ignored my wish, so I looked for other to-do things. As he lives barely four miles south of the Arctic Circle, the imaginary line that runs 66.56 degrees north of the Equator, I signed up for an Arctic Circle Crossing Ceremony.
The afterlife and the Arctic Circle…
You cannot just hop over, there are Circle-crossing rituals. Inside the kota (tepee), the Sami shaman picked warm ash from the bonfire, drew antlers on my forehead and questioned, “Do you want to be reborn as a reindeer?”
Reindeer? From the kota, I peeped out for another look at the reindeer — beige undercoat, large eyes, curved antlers, a neat mouth… Reborn as a reindeer? No. I’d look preposterous as a reindeer munching on Arctic lichen for lunch, walking around with a crown of antlers and not even have tweeds to wear in minus 20 degrees.
No, not reindeer, please. “Do I get another choice?” I asked the shaman, mulling over afterlife options of being a husky or a polar bear curled up in Ranua Wildlife Park, the world’s highest zoo. The shaman looked listless; in the Arctic Circle he had no better afterlife to offer. I chose not to be reborn as a reindeer, but I did cross the Arctic Circle. It was a mere hop, but I received an Arctic Circle Crossing Certificate.
It’s a white Christmas, after all, at SnowLand…
In Rovaniemi, when Santa ignored my wish, the shaman offered no other next-life option and the Northern Lights proved too elusive, I found solace in 60,000 tonnes of ice. Yes, in SnowLand, an igloo restaurant, where everything is made of ice — the bench, the pew in the church, wine glass, the dining table, the bed… In Snowland, large slabs of ice picked from the lake are the sole construction material. You sit on a snow-sofa with real reindeer skin for upholstery and all around there are sheets of ice that melt away in summer only to be rebuilt again every December.
The temperature inside is maintained at a constant six degrees Celsius. It was freezing cold inside, and I had to borrow leg warmers, wrap myself in reindeer skin, and order a steaming bowl of mushroom soup and hot berry juice.
If sleeping on a snow bed is not adventure enough, one can scrape off all urban grime by taking a peat bath or slipping into the sauna. If you think the typical Finnish sauna is like the one you would find within any four walls that masquerade as a sauna, think again. In a traditional Finnish sauna, you slip in covered only in your own skin (no clothes, please!) and you beat yourself with birch sticks to enhance blood circulation.
Christmas is round the bend. I no longer hang stockings. Ma is no more and Santa, I know, is fiction. So, no gifts. But I still have the red round sticker that Santa — the one in red pyjamas, long nylon beard and gigantic felt shoes — gave me in Rovaniemi. That’s Christmas enough!
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