from Tanya Gold GROTTY GROTTO
IN LAPLAND Hundreds of frenzied children, fleets of churlish elves and sauteed reindeer for sale. One Mail writer visits Santa’s Lapland home and discovers a very . . .
ASANTALAND appears. The park is actually called Poropirtti, but my Finnish is rusty; to me it is Santaland. It is pristine and charming. I see a collection of rustic wooden huts — one is signposted the Rudolph The RedNosed Reindeer Ceremony — a Narnia-style lamppost, and animal skin tents with blazing fires inside. There are giant candles everywhere and we need them — even though it is only lunchtime it is already getting dark.
There are skis and sledges to amuse the children, and a wooden sign that says ‘ Arctic Circle’ swings in the chill. On the outskirts of the park there are husky dog sleigh rides, snow- mobiles, long motorised sledges and — most excitingly — a reindeer- drawn sleigh that leads to Santa’s grotto. It is even beginning to snow, and it isn’t BBC snow. It is real. Wondrous, I think. Merry Christmas, Darling. (All I want for Christmas is to stop talking to myself.)
As children hurl themselves face down into the snow in the crucifixion/swastika position (are they eating the snow?) I join the reindeer- sleigh that takes you to the Santa queue, which is marshalled by another woman in Finnish peasant dress. This ‘elf’ is wearing a miner’s lamp to battle the growing gloom. My fellow queuers are recording the experience with camcorders (you can take the father out of the
GLOOMY dawn breaks over
Gatwick Airport as I am accosted by
a man wearing a Santa hat. ‘ Are you
here for the Magic of Lapland tour?’
he queries as his bell jingles. I nod
from under my hat, six jumpers and blanket which is cunningly disguised as a poncho. I am dressed as a Siberian refugee because I am flying to the Arctic Circle to meet Santa Claus — for the day.
I am not really a Father Christmas fan. I never spend Christmas Eve peering up the chimney looking for a sack of Chanel No 5 and a big red bottom. First, because I am Jewish and I am not supposed to celebrate Christmas.
Second, when I was a child my father always remarked that he had a bottle of whisky for Santa Claus, so I grew up believing Santa was an alcoholic.
Third, I know that Santa is a conglomerate of people: part fourth- century Byzantine saint ( St Nicholas or, as the Dutch call him, Sinterklaas), part English pagan icon ( Father Christmas) and part CEO of the money-guzzling American conglomerate Toys, Tinsels & Battery Turkeys Inc.
But I still want to meet him in his polar gaff. Any cultural icon who dresses like a pimple (red and white?) is surely worth examining. And I am promised reindeer.
The Magic of Lapland aeroplane is stuffed like an aerodynamic turkey: of couples holding hands, and of parents and their children, dragged from their beds at dawn ‘to meet Santa Claus’.
‘They didn’t know about it until today,’ says one smiling mother. ‘We woke them in the middle of the night and said: “We are going to meet Santa Claus.”’
As we take off, some parents tell their children that the plane is being pulled by reindeer, which I think is irresponsible; what if they try it at home? But there is a chorus of happy infant wailing. How sweet, I think, to see Santa bring wonder to these innocent little faces.
As we cross the North Sea I pull polo neck No 4 over my nose and doze. I am awakened first by a childish chorus of Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer and later We Wish You A Merry Christmas.
As we progress over Sweden, the atmosphere becomes anarchically festive. Children are weeping, singing, vomiting and standing on their seats. I love children, I think, looking round the plane, but I couldn’t manage a whole one — even at Christmas.
The doors open and we stagger out into Lapland, northern Finland. Lapland is very clean — so clean I fear that smoking is forbidden. It is a genuine winter wonderland. Santa’s home looks like The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe’s Narnia during its long enchanted winter. Everything is white, white, white — every lighter shade of pale is here.
It is very cold, eerily lit by a weird pale sun, and the snow is so light and powdery that it rests where it falls on the pine trees. And the snow creates silence. Even the children are silent; I momentarily wonder if they have expired. But no — they are amazed. They have found something more wondrous than SpongeBob SquarePants. A coach manned by a beautiful blonde Finn in peasant dress takes us to Lapland Safaris HQ to get suitable Arctic clothing. We are given gloves, scarves, hats, socks, boots and all-in- one waterproof bodysuits. Zipped into our suits we look like a lumberjack convention with a large dwarf contingent to the rear.
Babygro is not a look I cherish, but the E number monsters (sorry — the children) are smiling. They are laughing. They are vibrating. One five-year- old girl is so excited I fear she will explode.
‘ We’re going to see Santa now,’ the psychiatric nurses (sorry — the parents) explain. The smiles grow wider, the vibrations faster. It’s back to the coach, along a motorway and on to a track. Candles buried in the snow light the way.
really like. Is he a wobbling warmhearted sweetheart? Is the suit scarlet or crimson? Is he fatter than me?
The door swings open. He is sitting by the fire. He is fatter than me — thank goodness.
He has the gear I remember from a thousand shop windows: whiskers, spectacles, red and white suit ( a terrible mistake, I think; he should have stuck to the traditional pre19th century green outfit), giant belly and paternal smile.
His beard is slightly askew. If he is surprised to see a middle- aged woman grinning stupidly in his grotto, he doesn’t show it.
‘ Have you been a good girl this year?’ he asks. ‘No,’ I think. ‘Yes,’ I say. I have an urge to sit on his knee, but this doesn’t faze me — I often get this urge with men over 50. Santa is nearly 2,000 years old and Clarins haven’t even invented a moisturiser for skin of his maturity. But I feel a vast wave of love.
‘ I know you have been a good girl as the elves told me so,’ he says. ‘ Who has been spying on me?’ I think automatically. But I say nothing.
I fight an urge to tug his beard down. It is definitely wonky.
‘Where are you when you are not here?’ I ask. ‘On holiday,’ he says. ‘I particularly like Barcelona. I have been around.’ I don’t know what to say to this, but it’s OK — he’s gearing up for the Big Question. ‘What do you want for Christmas?’ he asks. Again, it’s OK — I have an answer M25 catchment area, but you can’t take the M25 catchment area out of the father). One woman stares at a reindeer and asks her husband: ‘Is it a cow?’
The Finn with the miner’s lamp ushers me forward and invites me to lie down on a reindeer skin in the sleigh. I glance at the live reindeer and pat it jovially with an I- WishYou-A-Merry- Christmas grin. The reindeer isn’t thrilled; it snarls at me (does it know I am using some of its family for a bed?).
One tug of the antlers and we are heading for the magic grotto. It’s a beautiful experience. I lie and stare at the curious sky singing When The Snowman Brings The Snow to myself. Then Santa’s house appears.
It doesn’t look like a grotto á la Harrods, or the Whitgift Centre in Croydon. It looks like a large designer shed with red and white checked curtains.
It is my big Christmas moment. After years of scepticism, doubt, disappointment and watching re-runs of Only Fools And Horses I will get to meet Santa Claus — not some part- time physiotherapist from Finchley moonlighting for financial reasons, but the genuine, original, bona fide Santa himself.
‘ I’m going to meet Santa!’ my heart sings. ‘Santa baby is coming down the chimney tonight.’ I think of the Marx Brothers joke — ‘ But there ain’t no sanity clause’ — and wonder what Father Christmas is prepared. ‘ Roman Abramovich,’ I reply confidently. ‘Or any plutocrat in reasonable condition with a capacity to love. Or,’ I add for safety, just in case he doesn’t have Roman Abramovich or a similar item to hand in his sack, ‘a three-bedroom Georgian house in Hampstead village. The village proper. Please.’
Santa looks at me as if I am insane. So I stare blushing at my feet and back off feebly. ‘Handbag,’ I mutter. (I know — I’m pathetic). But Santa looks relieved. ‘ I’ll see what I can do,’ he says. I don’t think he likes me.
WHEN I ask: ‘Please may I have a present, Santa?’ and hold out my paw, he says: ‘ They are for the children. You can’t have one.’ My eyes widen with shock. What is happening in Lapland?
I try to pull myself together (I am supposed to be working, after all). Outside the shed, I pop into a tent for a cup of hot chocolate ( it is poured from a steaming iron kettle), I go to the rustic restaurant and eat some meatballs and then I try to throw a snowball at myself.
I test my laptitude ( reader, I’m sorry) at skiing. I ski like Jabba the Hut would if he was dumb enough to go to Lapland. I play a game where you throw a lasso at antlers — the rope lands farther from the antlers than it was when it was handed to me; it lands behind me.
Then I go on a husky dog sleigh ride. There are ten dogs to one sleigh and they whiz me round a quarter-mile track. It is like being on a rollercoaster that barks.
I carry my growing (and portable) misanthropy into the hut that says ‘Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer Ceremony’. I have always believed that Rudolph’s problem nose is nothing that can’t be cured by some concealer, so I investigate.
Inside is an elf. He says his name is Janne. I tell Janne about Santa. He looks startled. ‘ But you’re in the book for a present!’ he cries. ‘Page 272! You will receive a present on Christmas Eve from Santa.’
I snarl sceptically at him. He ignores the snarl, takes a piece of wood — it’s a ‘magic’ stick, children — and rubs my nose with it.
‘On Christmas Eve your nose will glow red and Santa and Rudolph will know where to find you,’ he says. I feel slightly better. Then I stare in the mirror. I look like a miner with a sooty nose. I feel worse again. And since I hate Santa, why would I want him coming over anyway?
‘I think you should have a coup,’ I tell the elf. ‘I think you would make a much better Santa than Santa.’ Janne’s mouth drops open like a letterbox. ‘You cannot say that about Santa,’ he says. ‘Santa is Santa.’
I sense I am dealing with a Santa ideologue. So I wave him and his magic stick farewell. I go and sit by the fire in the hot chocolate tent.
The coaches arrive to scoop us up from wonderland. We make a brief stop at Santa’s Village, a vast Santathemed merchandise emporium staffed by knackered-looking elves. I see every permutation of Santa and Rudolph toy (wood, plastic, fur, china, nanotechnology).
I browse Santa Foods — they stock braised reindeer, sautéed reindeer, smoked reindeer, minced reindeer and reindeer paté — and consider buying a reindeer skin for about £50.
But what I really want is a live reindeer. That will get them going in Customs and Excise. But I buy a reindeer recipe book. If Rudolph sticks his nose down my chimney, I reason, I’ll be waiting.
As we board the plane I am given a reindeer driving licence (can I use it as ID?) and a You Have Crossed The Arctic Circle Certificate. ‘We hereby certify that on December 17, 2005, Tanya Gold crossed the Arctic Circle at 66 33’07 N, 25 50’51 E,’ it says. It does not add ‘crossed morosely’.
As we take off — the lie about it being drawn by reindeer is repeated — the children hit their toy Rudolphs. And I try to understand — about childhood, soft toys and forgiveness. I’m afraid I fail.
Tomorrow, as Frank Sinatra sang, I’ll sit right down and write myself a letter. I’ll go to Selfridges and buy myself a thousand presents. My verdict on Santa Claus? Unbelievable.