HO, HO, HOLIDAYS

The winter sports turn out to be almost as much fun as meeting Santa in his home town for Henry Druce and his family

All-year-round Santa, snow and sledding in Lapland

AS the Telegraph’s ski editor, I’m used to spending a bit of time in the snow. But Lapland is an altogether different — and more exotic — proposition. With our daughters, Zoe, 6, and Holly, 4, at an age when everything to do with Christmas is magical, my wife and I decided we would visit Santa Claus on his home turf.

Still, I can never quite leave the day job, so — while we were keen to capture the magic of Christmas — a desire to ski and discover the very best of Finland’s winter sports led us to Saariselkä, a small, refrigerated town (it was - 20°C) of low-rise buildings topped with snow located some 250km north of the Arctic Circle.

At our hotel, we had one large room, two double beds and a sauna in the bathroom. After settling in, we dined at Hotel Tunturi, a five-minute walk away, where there was pizza, chips and fish fingers for the kids, and more sophisticated, largely British-style offerings for adults, such as smoked mackerel and pork terrine.

In the world of the holiday operator Santa’s Lapland, the white-bearded one lives a 25-minute bus ride away from our hotel, at the Arctic Circle Centre — a multiactivity base set within the wooded, snow-coated landscape. And this, for my family, was what stood out on our trip — the sheer range of wintry fun to be had.

The kids loved speeding through the woods on a husky sleigh ride, and were equally enthralled by a more sedate sleigh ride towed by reindeer; they were eager to ride minimotorised snowmobiles — tethered to a tree to stop them disappearing into the Arctic wilderness.

Exploring the two large igloos on-site received an enthusiastic thumbs-up: one had a disco-like tunnel, lit up with multicoloured lights. I, in turn, enjoyed the ice bar, where I bought a warming shot of vodka, and the illuminated trees that created a shockingly colourful backdrop in this magical white landscape. The otherworldly feel was enhanced by the lack of natural illumination — and maybe the vodka — as the sun doesn’t rise at this time of year, only producing a wan half-light for about four hours between 10am and 2pm.

I was thrilled to get the chance to ski so far north — and on Christmas Day. Admittedly, the local slopes are modest, with short runs best suited to beginners. But the experience of skiing under floodlights, with an Arctic wind trying to blow me off course, was truly atmospheric. I only rued not having more time to explore the area’s extensive network of trails, over 200km in total.

Inevitably, for my children, the highlight of the trip was meeting Father Christmas. After wending our way on a sled through the woods, to a log cabin, the girls had an audience with the man himself, who had the longest white beard I’ve ever seen, and was surrounded by stacks of presents. He invited Holly and Zoe to sit beside him, and read aloud the letter they’d sent him weeks before.

Our meeting was over in a few minutes; the look of awe on my children’s faces has stayed with me for far longer. We rounded off the day — the night before Christmas — back at the Hotel Tunturi’s dining area, where we joined fellow British holidaymakers wearing party hats in the midst of baubles, tinsel, turkey and Christmas pud. As Wizzard’s I Wish it Could be Christmas Everyday started playing over the sound system, I realised that I’d become so caught up in the festive atmosphere that I almost wished that it could. — © The Sunday Telegraph

The kids loved speeding through the woods on a husky sleigh ride