Definitions related to Santa Claus
Age
Santa Claus is so old that even he himself cannot remember his own age anymore. But it does not matter, since this kind of oldish but ageless and friendly Santa Claus is a messenger of the Christmas spirit, who is accepted and loved by all even without an ID card.
Airport
The Airport of Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland, is the Official Airport of Santa Claus.
Appearance of Santa Claus
Santa Claus can have very different outward appearances depending on the situations in which he moves and is seen or in what connections he shows himself. Nevertheless, Santa Claus is always Santa Claus, no matter whether his beard is longer or shorter or whether he wears shoepacks or woollen socks.
Arctic Circle
In 1950 Finland worked hard after the Second World War to reappear on the world map. At the Arctic Circle, in 66°33'07'' northern latitude and in 25°50'51'' northern longitude, there was at that time a small lodge built to celebrate a visit to Finnish Lapland by Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt, the wife of the American president. This is how Mrs. Roosevelt became the godmother of the entire Pajakylä Village, and the lodge is still there in Pajakylä in remembrance of this important visit.In early summer, the sun shines 24 hours a day at the Arctic Circle. During the Yuletide season, the sun is hibernating and does not show itself at all. But the colours of the sky are bright and magnificent. Santa Claus can be met only in Finland on any day of the year without any charge.
Christmas carols
One of the most loved Finnish Christmas carols of all times is the "Joulupukki, joulupukki, valkoparta vanha ukki" composed and written by P.J. Hannikainen for over a hundred years ago. In Finland, many Christmas carols are sung during the Yuletide season both at church and in other surroundings. One of the most beautiful songs is "Maa on niin kaunis". It is a German folk tune from the 19th century, the lyrics by B.S. Ingemann being translated into Finnish by Hilja Haahti. Another heartfelt Christmas song that is loved by all Finns is "En etsi valtaa loistoa" composed by Jean Sibelius and written by Sakari Topelius.The world's most famous Christmas carol is "White Christmas", recorded by Bing Crosby in 1942.Santa Claus had better know many Finnish Christmas songs, too, and teach them to his visitors.
Christmas tree
A German 19th century artist painted a picture of Luther sitting with his family around a Christmas tree. However, this is not a historical truth, because Luther lived in the 16th century, when no trees were used in homes. The picture left, however, a longing for a tree in people's hearts. One of the countries of origin of the Christmas tree is Germany, where decorated trees have provedly been appearing from the 17th century. The first mention of a Christmas tree dates back to at least 1830, and when the elementary schools began to have Christmas tree parties, the tree became a well-known proclaimer of the Yuletide season with a star appearing on its crown. The tree is decorated with candles, garlands of flags and angels. Santa Claus often delivers his presents in advance under the Christmas tree, ready to wait for the distribution of the presents.
Elves
Throughout the times, invisible little fairies or guardian spirits have been living in Finnish woods, houses and saunas, helping the humans with their many chores. The homes were minded by a great number of fairies or elves, who were either sauna, stable or barn elves, to mention a few. The humans, for their part, were to take care of the elves and to give them porridge at Christmas. If the elves were treated well, they stayed at the house and helped the members of the household with good many jobs. Ill-treated elves moved away.The father of the Finnish language, Mikael Agricola, wrote a foreword on an elf in his Psalter published in 1551: "Tontu honen menon hallitzi", i.e. an elf administered the goings-on in the room or kept the home in good order. The well-known founder of a Swedish convent, St. Birgitta, is told to have personally known the elf that helped her!The elves of today live with Santa Claus and Lady Santa inside Korvatunturi in Lapland, but many of them show themselves everywhere in Finland especially during the Christmas season. The elves have specialised in different jobs: present elves make Christmas presents, post elves tend the Santa Post Office and its extensive correspondence, kitchen elves help in cooking, candy elves make Christmas candies, reindeer elves breed the reindeer, fisherman elves bring salmon to the table of Santa Claus, the berry elves pick berries, the porridge elves make the Christmas porridge, the car elves drive the car, the computer elves are in charge of modern telecommunications, the phone elves answer the telephone, the doll elves make dolls, the knitting elves knit beautiful socks and mittens, etc. etc.; there seems to be no end to them.The elves are smaller in size than Santa Claus, but their age is not known to anyone, either, not even to themselves. When Santa Claus and Lady Santa need more elves, they take out a big iron pot, put cones from the Christmas tree in it and a red cover over it, after which Lady Santa says a few magic words. The following day, Lady Santa takes the cover off, and a swarm of elves jump onto the floor joyfully laughing and chatting. And so does Lady Santa give each new elf of hers a name and an assignment.
Finnish Christmas
Finnish Christmas can be experienced both in the north and in the south, in the east and in the west, i.e. everywhere in Finland, a country 1160 kilometres in length and 540 kilometres in breadth.Finnish Christmas embraces by the wait for Christmas, the snow, the warmth and heat brought by real fire, the hunt for the Christmas tree and the moments spent in decorating it, old-fashioned sleigh rides, reindeer- or dog-pulled sled rides, or modern snowmobiles, skiing, skating, bob-sledge or sled slides, the traditional Christmas dishes, the islanders' tradition, Saint Lucy, the "tiernapojat" tradition, Christmas markets, the proclamation of Yuletide peace, Christmas church, Christmas carols and, of course, the visit of Santa Claus and the elfin games played especially in schools.Finnish Christmas can be celebrated both in cities and traditionally in the countryside, and a foreign guest can pay a speedy visit to Santa Claus by plane or spend a pleasant Christmas at a hotel, and everything there between. The most important thing is that each locality offers its own peculiarities and traditions for the visitor to see and experience. And: at Christmas there reign peace on earth and good will towards men.
Flying
Santa Claus sometimes uses an aircraft to move from one place to another, or when he is marketing Finland as the world's only real home country of Santa Claus. Santa Claus has become a diplomat who can speak many languages and who travels abroad in all seasons.
Food
As you can already tell from the appearance of Santa Claus and Lady Santa, they are real gourmands, but in quite a sound way. In the morning, they always eat porridge, and both of them love their morning coffee that they cannot very well do without in order to wake up properly for the tasks of the day. The porridge is washed down with reindeer milk.The whole Korvatunturi household eats sandwiches many times during the day. The rye bread has a topping of glow fried salmon. In addition, sandwich cheese with cloudberry jam is on the menu. The main meal of the day includes the Lappish speciality, the oblong peeled fingerling potatoes ("puikulat"), delicious Finnish fish, cloudberry pastry or lingonberry fool.Lady Santa and the elves always drink lingonberry juice or crowberry juice. And they all eat, especially at Christmas, huge piles of gingerbread cookies that the cookie elves bake in a big oven. At Christmas, the inhabitants of the Korvatunturi do not have much time to eat, but there is, in spite of this, a gigantic Christmas roast ham all the time on a big dining table, and Lady Santa cuts thick slices always according to how many hungry ones there are waiting with their arms outstretched. A ham slice with delicious Christmas loaf, or "limppu" in Finnish, can work wonders, and the work goes again like a dream. In December hundreds of litres of hot Christmas "glögi" made of black currant are consumed inside Korvatunturi.Despite the bustle, the Korvatunturi household tries to have a real Finnish Christmas meal once at Christmas. The meal includes "rosolli" (a cold salad made of root vegetables), herring, ham of course, the potato, carrot and swede casseroles, with plum compote as dessert and mince pies baked by Lady Santa to accompany the coffee. The best part of the meal is, however, enjoying the white Christmas porridge. The one who finds the almond eye from the porridge can wish whatever he likes, and the wish will come true during the following year.
Foreign Santas and elves
The Finnish Santa Claus lives in peace and harmony with his many foreign relatives and colleagues. Among these are the German Weihnachtsmann, the Russian Grandfather Frost (Ded Moroz), the Swedish Tomten, the Norwegian Julenissen, the Greenlandic Santa Claus, and many others. The only real Santa Claus lives, however, in Finland.
Frost
A weather condition when the mercury in the thermometer falls below zero or shows minus degrees is called frost. In Lapland, the mercury may sometimes fall below minus 30 degrees, when it is really cold. When you walk outside in the frost, you can often hear the snow crunch under your shoes. The walls can also be cracking with the frost. However, Finnish houses have always so multiply glazed windows and good heating that the frost can never bite those inside the houses.
Gnome of the Turku Castle
A gnome, known to all Finns, lives in the Turku Castle. His age and birth are one single mysterious fairy-tale as those of Santa Claus himself. At that time, the Christmas town of Turku had only 150 inhabitants, and there were many elves living in their named places and carrying out their tasks. The Gnome naturally minded the Castle together with his cat called Murre, and he still continues to keep the castle in order, so that visitors would like it there.
Gold claim
When living inside Korvatunturi, Santa Claus has always known that there is gold in Lapland. He has gold claims of his own in Lapland. Nowadays Santa Claus has hardly time for gold panning, which the gold elves do for him, when necessary. The head elf is called Hippu. Sometimes the jewel elves make tremendously beautiful small pieces of jewellery for the mothers and grand-mothers as Christmas presents from the gold they have panned. The gold claim of Santa Claus is as secret a place as his home inside Korvatunturi: nobody has ever found it.
Helicopter
Sometimes Santa Claus is in such a hurry from one place to another that he must have recourse to the help of a helicopter. There is also more room for the presents than in the reindeer sleigh.
In many places at the same time
The reindeer know how to break the time zone, which is why they can run so swiftly to many different places on the Earth during the Yuletide season. Santa Claus has hundreds of years' experience of life that has given him such magic secret powers that he uses in working his miracles during the Christmas season. Santa Claus has charisma, the same kind of spiritual power that some people have. Therefore it is quite natural than Santa Claus shows himself in different places at the same time. But in the end, however, it is only Santa Claus himself who knows his deepest time-warping secret.Luckily the many children in the world have got accustomed to receiving their presents on different days. This period starts on 6 December, the birthday of Saint Nicholas, and ends on 6 January, on Epiphany, so that Santa Claus has one month to distribute the presents in every part of the world. It is true that plenty of magic and even secrets are connected to Yuletide, but this is not magic: when it is seven o'clock in the evening in Tokyo, in Finnish Lapland it is noon and in New York five o'clock in the morning.This explains, for its part, the fact that Santa Claus does not in fact distribute his presents at the same instant in every country.
Korvatunturi
Korvatunturi is the home of Santa Claus, situated in Lapland, Finland. The top of the fell has three peaks or "korvas", which mean "ears" in Finnish. It is with these ears that Santa Claus hears the Christmas wishes of all children around the world. Korvatunturi is so secret a place that no-one is to enter there besides Santa Claus, Lady Santa and the hundreds of elves. Korvatunturi is a 483 metres high "tunturi" or fell, whose ears function like satellites.
Lady Santa
Lady Santa appears rarely in public, because she has the important task of keeping things orderly in the household inside Korvatunturi, so that Santa Claus and the elves are free to do their own work. In Savukoski, in the Province of Korvatunturi, Lady Santa has her own chamber where she shows herself. However, she is nowadays more visible than before, and she is just as cordial and friendly as Santa Claus. Lady Santa brings in a warm sense of motherhood, and her lap is usually more inviting for children to climb in than that of Santa, who sometimes arouses tension. Lady Santa is a nice Mother Christmas who is easy to hug. She complements and softens the picture of Santa Claus. Lady Santa should have keys on her neck and a scoop on her belt and many small patch pockets which can carry no matter what little items.The wife of Santa Claus is called Lady Santa in English. Other names like Mrs. Santa or Mother Christmas are also used to refer to her.
Lapland
Lapland, the homeland of Santa Claus, is situated at the Arctic Circle.
Library
In Pajakylä, opposite to the Santa Claus' post office, there is a library open to all who wish to read books related to Santa Claus, published in many different languages.
Merry Christmas
It is good for the Santa Claus to know how to wish Merry Christmas in as many a language as possible. In many countries, the Christmas greeting is always accompanied by the Season's greeting for the New Year:
Buriid Juoullaid and Lihkolas Odda Jagi (in the Sámi language)
God Jul och Gott Nytt År (in Swedish)
Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (in English)
Glædlig Jul og Godt Nytår (in Danish)
Joyeux Noël et bonne Année (in French)
Frohe Weihnachten und ein gutes Neues Jahr (in German)
Häid joule ja onnelikku uut aastat (in Estonian)
Feliz navidad y prospero Año Nuevo (in Spanish)
Buon Natale e Felice Anno Nuovo (in Italian)
Kellemes Karacsonyiunnepeket & Boldog Új Évet (in Hungarian)
In Japanese Santa Claus wishes Merry Christmas by saying: "meeri kurisumasu".
Mobile phone
Santa Claus has a red mobile phone, and the reindeer and he himself may hurry across the text field of the mobile phone.
Northern Lights
When the legendary Fox runs on the fells of Lapland, he creates magnificent celestial phenomena by whisking the snow with his bushy tail, throwing snowflakes into the air to form the world's most beautiful light spectacle, the northern lights, or aurora borealis. This unique light phenomenon resembles dragons in different hues of green, white and red, dancing gracefully up and down, from side to side. The elves and Santa Claus have been very wise to have hired the Fox as their help. Every time that help is needed somewhere, or somebody has something important to say, the Fox is summoned with three whistles and asked to kindle the northern lights. Then everyone knows what to do: you must hop onto the fastest reindeer or in the fastest pulka and come to help.
Own vacation
Santa Claus, Lady Santa and the elves have time to relax in summer. This is when a lucky wanderer can see them angling or picking berries on the fells of Lapland. Sometimes Santa Claus has time for his favourite hobby, gold panning. He and his companions also go to the sauna and dare sometimes to dive into ice-cold lakewater after the intense heat of the sauna.
Post office
The main post office of Santa Claus is situated at Pajakylä Village at the Arctic Circle. Santa Claus receives so much mail that there is no way that the tens of post elves could handle it without computers. Santa Claus receives about a million letters a year, which is an absolute world record of the Santa Claus mail. So many letters arrive at Pajakylä that Santa Claus has already asked the national post to help. Finland Post Ltd. has centralised the ordering of letters for the adults, who can order a letter from Santa Claus, subject to a charge, which will be sent to their child for Christmas. The letter also includes a small present.Nowadays Santa Claus can write his reply letters in these languages: Finnish, Swedish, German, English, Italian, French, Spanish, Japanese, Dutch, Estonian, Russian and Portuguese. As many as half a million letters were sent in 1998 from the post office of Santa Claus to the children of the world. Great Britain, Japan, Poland and Italy have been the countries receiving most of the letters.Before Christmas, the letter elves sit very tightly at their computers at the Pajakylä Post Office. The stamp elves attach beautiful Finnish Christmas stamps onto the envelopes; the stamps have been in use since 1973. The Finns are eager to send Christmas cards: the national post carries annually about 52 million Christmas cards.
Pulka
Santa Claus rides in a pulka pulled by one reindeer. The pulka or "ahkio" in Finnish is an ancient means of transportation pulled by reindeer in Lapland. The Sámi learned how to make pulkas from the beavers! When beavers were building their winter nests and gnawed at logs of aspen to their construction material, one beaver set itself on its back on the ground with the pieces of wood in its lap, and the other ones pulled this beaver behind them just like a pulka.
Reindeer
The world-famous reindeer of Santa Claus is called Rudolph the Red-nosed. In the dark nights of the Christmas season, his red nose throws light to the trips of Santa Claus through the air. But Rudolph is only one of the reindeer, because Santa Claus could never make his thousands of trips to children with one reindeer alone. Other reindeer of Santa Claus are called Ailu, Suivakka, Mutsikki, Valkko, Tilkku, Sipsu, Täpy, Turpo, Pyry, Kipinä, Maskotti, Saukki and Poku. All of the reindeer are of different colours and have different kinds of characters. They are white, dark grey, spotty. Santa's reindeer are male reindeer that weigh nearly a hundred kilograms and have enough strength to bear Santa Claus himself and the many sacks of presents even to long way off.
Reindeer year
Santa Claus lives in Lapland, Finland, quite much according to the reindeer year, except during the Christmas season. The reindeer year is dictated by the rhythm of the northern nature and the jobs related to reindeer husbandry, which vary according to the four seasons.The reindeer calves are born just when spring is turning into summer, weighing some five kilograms. In mid-summer, the mosquitoes make the reindeer herd together in big "tokkas" on the fells. In fact, the reindeer elves say that the mosquitoes are their assistants, as it is then easy to get all the reindeer together in order to earmark them. Every reindeer owner has an earmark of his own whereby he can later on discern his own reindeer. Santa Claus, too, has a particular earmark in which Korvatunturi is featured.The reindeer eat grey lichen or "jäkälä", which a kind of moss of Lapland. In the autumn they eat mushrooms, which are very common in Lapland. At Christmas, the consumption of lichen is huge.The reindeer are half-tame creatures, and one is to thank their somewhat wild nature for their strength to make the many long trips during the Christmas season.
Saint Nicholas
Saint Nicholas was born in 270 AD on the Mediterranean coast, in a little, now ruined town called Patara, in Turkey, close to the holiday island Rhodos. The town was at the time a rich trading town and the capital of the contemporary realm of Lycia. The job description of Santa Claus is also based on the tradition of Saint Nicholas.Saint Nicholas died as a well-respected bishop of a small town called Myra in the Province of Demre in 347 AD. He was later nominated a saint and the patron of wood birds, sailors, small children, and the like.Once he saved a poor man from a great distress. The man had no money for the dowries of his three daughters, and the daughters feared that their father would have to sell them to strange men. Saint Nicholas dropped in secret gold coins through the chimney into the daughters' socks that were hung to dry by the mantelpiece, and the father then used the coins for marrying his daughters to the men they liked. It was never revealed to anyone who had put the coins in the socks. It was not until later times that historical studies disclosed this.Santa Claus has assumed this beautiful and secret custom as his own Christmas philosophy: he, too, shows himself mysteriously in people's homes, gives his presents and disappears only to return the next Christmas.The birthday of Saint Nicholas is the same as the Independence Day of Finland, the 6th of December.
Santa
The colloquial name of Santa Claus in English is "Santa". In Great Britain Santa Claus is called "Father Christmas", in the United States he is "Santa Claus", "Santa" or "St. Nicholas". In French he is called "Père Noël" or "Papa Noël", in German "der Weichnachtsmann", which means specifically a Santa Claus who brings presents. In the Swedish of the Swedes he is always "jultomte", and not "julgubbe" as the Swedish-speaking people in Finland call him.
Santapark
SantaPark is world's first amusement park of Santa Claus with its Santa, elves and reindeer, situated at the Arctic Circle. The cave built deep inside the Syväsenvaara fell in the Province of Rovaniemi is open all year round.
Sleigh
When Santa Claus has many presents to carry, he uses a sleigh, which is bigger than the pulka, and it is pulled by more than one reindeer. The ancestors of Santa Claus have used the sleigh in Finland as a winter vehicle as early as for six thousand years ago.
Snow
Snow is a white flaky substance composed of ice crystals, covering Lapland from November until late in spring. Snowmen, snow castles and snow balls can be made of snow. On a beautiful winter day, snow flakes hover like fairies towards the ground. Santa Claus rides his pulka lightly on the snowdrifts, because snow hardened by frost can bear even heavy weights. Snow and water together make ice. Ice lanterns belong to Finnish Christmas. One skates on ice and skis on snowdrifts. The first snow of the year is always the most imposing. The Finnish language has many different verbs for different kinds of snowfalls: "pyryttää" (the snow swirls down in large amounts), "tuiskuaa" (the snow whirls about), "tupruttaa" (the snow blows about in gusts).
Theatre
During the Christmas season, the National Theatre of Rovaniemi has always Christmas music theatre in its repertory.
Winter dark
At Christmas time, the Arctic Circle is surrounded by blue dusk, "kaamos" in Finnish, because the sun does not rise above the horizon. But the "kaamos", the sunless period in midwinter, is very beautiful, as the white snow, the bright stars and the many lights of Christmas make a fairy painting out of this natural scene. The sun starts to hibernate at the end of November and will not wake up again until mid-January.
Yuletide peace proclaimed in Turku
Yuletide peace is proclaimed in Turku at noon on 24 December, on Christmas Eve. The concept of Yuletide peace was known as early as the 13th century in the realm to which Finland, too, belonged. The Finnish language was used in the proclamation for the first time in 1711. The wording of the modern proclamation is based on an edict from Queen Christine dating from the 1640's. On the radio, the peace has been proclaimed in its modern formulation since 1935. The television came into the picture in 1983.
Zoos
The welfare of all animals is close to Santa's heart, not only that of his own reindeer. For instance, in the zoological park in Ranua, Christmas is always celebrated by the animals, too, and all the arctic animals of the zoo participate in the festivities from the lemmings to the lynxes. The bears, though, hibernate during the Yuletide season and cannot unfortunately take part in the Christmas party. Santa Claus has a few reindeer-herding territories of his own in Lapland. Such are the Salla and SantaPark reindeer parks and the Vuotso reindeer village, in all of which the reindeer have the star role to play.
Source: Finnish Tourist Board, 2001.
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