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Next Up: Finland Gives Santa a Blog

Not only does the Finnish Tourist Board want you to spend Christmas in Finland, but they also won't stop until you submit yourself to Santa and place your beating heart in his hands. While we're all for the magic of believing in Santa--he's real, it is not like 5-year olds are cruising tourism web sites in search of the big man's official web site. Yet the Finns are taking Santa's existence very very seriously:

Why does the real Santa Claus live in Finland? You can meet him on any day of the year, without any charge, only in Finland. Santa Claus' own animal, the reindeer, lives in Finland.

Good to know!

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.

Santa digs the sauna? You don't say. We wonder if he ever visits New York. There's a fabulous gym in midtown we'd like to recommend to him.

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.

Does that mean Santa takes to his lemmings like Hollywood starlets to their yorkies? Someone get US Weekly on line 2; we smell a photo op.

Lest that not be enough for you, the Board also wants you to know that Santa has an internet television channel and private reindeer-herding territories in Lapland. Come on now...all that, and he doesn't have a blog yet?

[Photo: bcostin]

Related Stories:
· Finland and Santa Claus [VisitFinland.com]