It's the Arctic, so it must be Santa

From: Guardian, UK
Nov. 3, 2002

Real reindeer (except for Rudolph), the elves' workshop and the man himself. Terry Slavin takes her son to Lapland

Sunday November 3, 2002
The Observer

It was the 8ft tall reindeer at check-in that had me worried. The whole attraction of going to Lapland at Christmas was to escape from the over-stuffed shopping mall Santas to real reindeer pulling sleighs through fields of snow lying deep and crisp and even.

'That's not the real Rudolph is it, Mum?' my son whispered urgently. 'It's just someone in costume.'

Adam is four, so who did they think they were fooling? Still he offered Adam a chocolate, so he was happy.

'No, sweetheart. We'll be seeing real reindeer in Lapland.'

But as we approached the Gatwick shuttle train to our gate, there was Rudolph again, sitting on a luggage trolley with his feet splayed out, being pushed by one of Santa's helpers in a short red plush skirt.

'Look, it's Rudolph again.'

'Yes, he looks rather hot in that costume.' Rudolph, who, mercifully, couldn't talk, mutely shrugged and shook his head.

My son sought confirmation from Santa's helper as we waited for the shuttle: 'He's not the real Rudolph, is he?'

'Of course he is. He's just resting before the big flight. He's going to be guiding your plane to Lapland.'

Well Rudolph must have developed engine trouble. Halfway across the North Sea a warning light came on in the cockpit and the combined magic power of Rudolph's navigational skills, the stewardess dressed as an angel and the magician on board couldn't prevent us from turning back and landing in Birmingham to change planes.

The delay added three hours to what, including a stop in Manchester, was meant to be a five-hour trip, but any grumpiness among the passengers was assuaged on the road from the airport, when we spotted Santa himself in the woods waving at the coach, illuminated only by a campfire.

'What lucky people you are, seeing Father Christmas already,' the rep enthused. 'And did you all see Rudolph at the airport? Keep a look-out, you might just see him again.'

Oh, please no, I mouthed silently in the darkness.

Every year British tour companies bring thousands of children to either Swedish or Finnish Lapland, within the Arctic Circle, to meet Father Christmas, visit his post office and see the elves make the toys in their workshop. It can be done in a very long day, or, as Adam and I did, in five, with time to go on husky dog and reindeer sleigh outings, snowmobile safaris, and skiing.

But with even the day-long trips costing £300-£400, the experience does not come cheap. Ours was a Christmas indulgence with sleigh bells on, part holiday camp, part theatre, and many tour companies have their own competing Father Christmas set-ups, using the snowy landscapes as props. You can even whisk by Concorde to Lapland in half the time.

Our coach set off for Santa's cottage at 4pm, hours into the star-studded blackness of an Arctic mid-winter night. There's only a couple of hours of daylight at this time of year, and with the sun not even lifting above the horizon even daylight is a kind of twilight bracketed by delicate sunrises and copper-coloured sunsets, the pine trees throwing long soft purple shadows across the snow. Without at least 800 ASA film, you need a flash for photographs even at midday.

As our coach turned off the well-lit highway and into the dark forest, the excitement among the children began to grow. The rep took the microphone to report that the dusting of snow on the road was Father Christmas's magic dust, and if we looked to our right through the trees we could see, not the illuminated pistes of the ski resort where we were staying, but the lights of Santa's landing strip climbing into the sky.

We were told to close our eyes for a count of 10, at the end of which some children's throats were so constricted that '10' came out as a squeak. When we opened our eyes the pine forest had opened up and we saw the twinkling fairy lights of the houses of Santa's homestead.

Out of the coach we stumbled, following a trail marked by lanterns and candles flickering in wells of snow. And who should we see stepping out of the shadows on the path but the proprietor himself. That he was only dimly illuminated by candlelight added to the magic. The children, struck dumb, crowded round, faces rapt, pressing their Christmas lists into his gloved hands.

I waited anxiously to hear him speak and was relieved to hear it was with gravelly Scandinavian authenticity, not a West Country burr. But he was a busy man and we moved on to visit Santa's house on our own, where Mrs Claus greeted every child, clasping their hands warmly in both of hers and asking their names. We were fed the ubiquitous warm berry juice and crispy gingerbread biscuits and invited to sign the guest register.

Next stop was the reindeer pen, where some honest-to-goodness Lappish reindeer were in residence - Dancer, Prancer and Blitzen from the name plaques. The rest were out doing a training run, the rep explained. 'But this isn't where Rudolph lives,' she said, leading the way to the elves' workshop. 'Here is where Rudolph lives.'

'No, no,' I thought. 'They couldn't.' The 8ft tall monstrosity with the bushy green eyebrows and tennis ball-sized nose had popped up the previous day at the Arctic Circle ceremony, the traditional welcome for all those who cross the Arctic Circle, and sure enough many of the children had swarmed around him, prodded by their parents, for a photo op - though my son gave him a wide berth. But surely they wouldn't juxtapose him with the genuine article?

And they hadn't. Rudolph, too, was out on manoeuvres, though we could see the bedroom where he slept in an anteroom to the elves' workshop.

Perhaps it wouldn't have mattered had he appeared. To adults the Father Christmas legend is a tissue of lies as fragile as a new dusting of snow, but to young children it is a sturdy and immutable truth that can survive any number of assaults by a crass, commercial and just plain thoughtless world. How, I wondered, could a boy who would pick me up on the slightest deviation from the text of a Thomas the Tank Engine story be unfazed by the dramatically different Santa Claus here to the one with the black sideburns he'd met at his school's Christmas bazaar?

Besides, at least the overstuffed plush variety was harmless - unlike the one we met the next day on a husky dog sledging outing, which proved only too real. As Adam approached to take a picture, the reindeer, who'd much rather have been roaming free across the Finnish tundra than be tethered to a post for the titillation of tourists, lowered his antlers and head-butted him, blazing a long curved welt across his cheek.

'Is that one of Santa's reindeers, Mum?' he asked after the shock had worn off and the tears had been dried.

'Oh no. Santa's reindeer would never do that to a little boy.'

Again, he wanted confirmation. 'Was he one of Santa's reindeers?' he asked one of the Finnish reps, who'd come running with a stuffed husky dog in appeasement.

She looked like a reindeer caught in the headlamps, a fixed smile across her face, oblivious to my attempts to catch her eye over my son's head.

'Yes,' she said brightly.

Wrong again. Why was it so tough to keep the story straight?

But Adam didn't seem unduly concerned by the discrepancy. After all we were only adults.

That night, when he got to sit on Santa's lap, he reported to him how one of the reindeer had taken a swipe at him. But Santa just nodded and smiled and gave him a present. The all-seeing, all-hearing and all-knowing Santa had evidently developed problems with his hearing aid.

Adam had his own theory. 'He doesn't speak our language, does he, Mum?' he said, and set about unwrapping his present.

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