Day 640 - Rovaniemi, Finland
Visiting Santa’s Village
Happy holidays from Santa Central in Rovaniemi, Finland! Being in Lapland, surrounded by fresh snow, we had to visit Santas Village. This small town brings thousands upon thousands into Santa HQ just below the Arctic Circle.
Our car had got us there by mid afternoon after departing Haparanda by Uber to pick up our rental car. By now we had been listening for hours to Christmas music so by the time we arrived we were in the mood. We had the feeling that if there was a Santa, he could certainly have set up his administrative offices here.
But the marketing of Santa was intense, like insurance salesman/used car salesman intense. Apparently Santa-marketing is a world-wide phenomenon! I found myself both loving the snowy, Christmas landscape and loathing the commercialism. Children giggled on their sleds as parents, navigated restaurants, retail shops, cafés, even a low long, two-story mall made of wood festooned everywhere with Christmas lights sent the mixed messages. Parents, children, local tourist milled throughout and crammed into the post office where you could have cards and letters sent directly to Santa!
There was also a playground among the tall pines, laden with snow and small, duplex cabins of wood that lined up into the trees like military barracks. Or visitors can spend a few days among Santa‘s elves, and, of course, Santa himself who is enthroned appropriately for conferences with excited Scandinavian children. (We never saw the man. Apparently he was on break.)
It’s not that the Santa Claus Holiday Village is horrible. It was a fun place and brought back pleasant memories of snowy, pre-Christmas days when I wondered if the big day would never come. But … the proliferation of dolls, cards, Santa stickers, sweaters, scarves, gloves, socks, every other kind of product and food masquerading somehow as Christmas, even Reindeer hides for sale (hard on Rudolph). Well, the Finnish have clearly learned well the ways of American and European capitalism and it’s less than savory.
But now it was time to move onto the town of Rovaniemi and then return farther north to the Arctic Circle and Lapland, the home of the Sami people.
Road from Rovaniemi to Levi (via Kemi)
The road from Rovaniemi took us through deepening snow and glistening forests; an absolutely beautiful and remote land. Heading farther north we passed through Kemi and onto Levi, a favorite ski resort for locals.
We listened to Christmas music the whole time. After all we really were passing through a Winter Wonderland!
We made Levi at twilight and rolled up a steep road that took us into a ski resort that glistened with tall pine encased in ice and snow. From our window we watched skiers zipping like black ants down the slopes beneath. But we weren't thinking about skiing. The goal the next day was to find the dog sledding camp we had been told about.
