Unnamed Road

We had a bus pick us up at 11 for a day in Santa’s secret hideaway with his elves. We started with a kilometre long hike through knee deep snow. Fortunately Ben found a sleigh that Emily could ride on which made the walk a lot easier for her.

We started with a sleigh ride around the frozen lake. I sat out with Thomas as he had just fallen asleep. The temperature was well below 0 and sitting next to a raging fire with him seemed like the best idea. The rest all had a couple of trips on the sleigh.

We then all gathered around a fire to hear a member of the Shamman community talk about the history of Lapland. It seemed quite pointless and he just regaled us with a story of where their unique 4 pointed hat comes from. He then proceeded to draw reindeer horns on each of our heads with ash from a smouldering log.

For lunch we had Spanish Paella, which seemed like a really strange choice for remote northern Finland. After lunch the boys headed off with the other kids to collect their own Christmas tree. They climbed up a hill and chopped down their own spruce and then carried it back across the lake. With Emily’s help they decorated it and even put a star on top.

The highlight was going to be visiting Santa’s secret hideaway. It was a tiny little cottage which looked incredibly cute and idyllic. We entered and the kids got a personal note from Santa. Except Ben, whose name got confused with Brons. Fortunately he wasn’t too fussed by it all.

As each family went into the cottage individually, we spent quite a bit of time outside. Bron and Thomas stayed by the campfire while Ben and I had a snow ball fight. While the snow was really deep, it was a fine powder which made it hard to make intro snow balls. We ended up just throwing snow at each other. Matthew and Emily played some campfire games with the other kids.

It was a long day and even though we left at only 3.30 in the afternoon it was pitch dark and Emily promptly fell asleep.

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