A chat with Santa in his Finnish kingdom

Author: By Doug Lansky, Globe Correspondent

Date: SUNDAY, December 13, 1998

Page: N1

Section: Travel

I'm not saying that Santa Claus isn't real. He is. I've seen him with my own eyes. I was just surprised that we have been correctly replicating his natural habitat (the shopping mall) all along.

In 1997, about 400,000 visitors made the trip here to Finland's Arctic Circle (which I have renamed and henceforth will always call The Arctic Circle Shopping Mall). They've arrived in some 1,000 chartered planes, including the Concorde!

The Arctic Circle Shopping Mall has a distinct Christmas theme (you can, for example, buy reindeer skins, reindeer slippers, key chains made from reindeer horns, silver reindeer broaches, toy reindeer, reindeer coffee mugs, and even canned reindeer pate!), but at least half the items for sale had nothing whatsoever to do with Santa, reindeer, or the Arctic Circle -- just your international selection of junkola.

A few things about Santa's headquarters aren't exactly what they seem. It's worth noting that the Arctic Circle I'm standing at isn't the real Arctic Circle (which always varies slightly with fluctuations in the magnetic North Pole), but it's the Arctic Circle officially marked by Finland. Which isn't really Finland. The country is actually called Suomi. None of the 20 Finns I asked were able to tell me how the world came to know it as Finland, or why this part of Suomi is called Lapland, since the Lapps are actually called Sami, and the Sami have no idea why everyone calls them Lapps, which they feel is derogatory. And many of the northernmost Sami don't even understand why some people, in an effort to be politically correct, call them Sami, because in the northern Sami language, they are called Sapmi. But I digress.

The post office is my favorite part of Santa's operation. The postal workers are dressed like elves (excuse me, they are elves) and they process around 680,000 letters per year.

Any letter in the world addressed to Santa will get there (provided it also says Finland somewhere on the envelope and has the correct postage). Around Christmastime, the elves receive up to 32,000 letters per day. I believe that's more mail than Oprah gets.

What are kids around the world asking for these days? According to the elves, Spice Girls items and Tamagotchi, the Japanese digital pet, top the wish list. Several thousand letters from children around the world are available for public viewing. Here are a few excerpts from my favorites:

Dear Santa,

I need some goods.

-- Halleemma, Sri Lanka

Santa,

My grandpa said I was naughty to spit out my medicine and that you would be watching me.

-- Ashleigh, UK

Santa,

I play with my dog, Lulu. My mom says Lulu doesn't like it when I eat her food, but I share my sweeties with her, so I don't think she minds me snacking on her dog biscuits.

-- Christiaan, South Africa

Standing in line for a $12 photo with Santa at his workshop, sponsored by a few companies I had not heard of, I looked at some of the other pictures of Santa hanging on the wall. It seems that a few of the actors from ``Bold and the Beautiful'' had been here to visit Santa not long ago. So had the Spice Girls! This caused much excitement among the Japanese visitors just ahead of me.

I got to sit next to Santa, not on his lap. He looked pretty real as Santas go. He had an upscale beard. His whole outfit looked as if it had been custom made by Armani, though he was going with his casual, red-sweater look. The Japanese were just thanking ``Santa-san'' as I approached. And I couldn't help but think that his accent sounded remarkably like Arnold Schwartzenegger's.

Q. How many languages do you speak?

A. All languages, of course.

Q. Who are all those other Santa lookalikes ringing bells in front of supermarkets and posing for pictures in malls around America?

A. My cousins.

Q. According to local legend, you're supposed to live at Ears Mountain [so you can hear around the world who is being good and bad], well north of here. Have you moved your residence to the Arctic Circle Shopping Mall?

A. I still live in my secret home on Ears Mountain, but commute here to work. I go back home at 5 p.m.

Q. How many elves do you have working for you?

A. I have enough.

Q. I noticed at the restaurant here in your workshop that there are a few reindeer-meat dishes on the menu. As a reindeer lover, does this upset you?

A. We have so many reindeer here -- 400,000. I have a few hundred of my own in training -- including Rudolph the red-nosed flying one -- and I would never allow any of those to be harmed. But reindeer meat is very good, and visitors like it.

Q. What did the Spice Girls ask for?

A. All wishes with Santa are confidential.

Q. What do you have to say to those who don't believe in you?

A. Here I am.

Letters can be addressed to: ``Santa Claus, Finland.''