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Sunday, 9 September 2007

SANTA LIVES IN ROVANIEMI FINLAND and we met him!



The letter Santa is going to send!!







Rovaniemi, Finland

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CONGRATULATIONS GLORIA ON BEING A GRANNY!!!! And to mum Tracey and DadTroy of course! First second cousins for Sam and Elise..aww.! Gorgeous little Slayde..awww....and he looks so cute, thanks Elise for the pic!

AND...wishing you a beautiful day for your wedding.....you and Murray make a gorgeous pair and we`ll be thinking of you!!

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Did you know that the REAL Santa Claus lives in Finland?

His REAL name is “Joulupukki”!

Joulupukki is Finnish and means “Yule Goat”.

Goats woven out of straw are typical Yule decorations in Scandinavia so that's where the name came from - a yule goat!!! Apparently at Yule, there is always a big feast, and after the feast, the Yule Goat brought presents....

Yule is the Winter Solstice and Christmas comes at the Winter Solstice..

So...

When the Christians came to Finland, the Yule celebration was moved from the evening of the 21st of December, the Solstice, to the evening of the 24th, the eve before the Mass for the Birth of Christ, “Christ Mass”, or Christmas.

Finns still keep the old pagan customs of Yule, even today!

They bring in a spruce tree and decorate it with red fruit and berries and usually the fruit and berries are made of glass or plastic these days.

Then, there is a big feast.

The center of the Yule Feast is a great ham. After the Feast, to celebrate the return of the Light, real candles are put on the spruce tree and lit, and sometimes sparklers are hung on the tree and lit, too. Little sparks of light shine all over the tree and are reflected from the glass fruit and glittering tinsel garlands.

So there you go! Thats the story of Santa..and how it came to be from Finland...

And we were the lucky ducks who got to talk and sit on the knee of the real Santa!!!! (didnt really sit on his knee..but close hahaha)

Going to visit Santa was SO cool! We felt like we were having our second childhood again! hahaha and...we got our pic taken..aww...such silly dags we are! Sent it to mum to look after until we get home...so there you go...weve MET SANTA!!!

One thing we noticed is...He is HUGE!! A BIG man!! Whoa....and his beard looks real hehe and he talks in every language..Russian, English and all the Euro languages...such a smart dude! Got a few letters sent to our little nephews too...(and a couple of us big kids as well!) who we thought would like a Santa letter..Aww...they'll come at xmas! All a bit of fun!!!!

The Santa Village is so colourful...we took a heap of pics of us knitting...eating....sitting...you know, all those usual things haha gawd.

OK We had fun alright!!!!

Recommend that little venture to anyone..

As we were about to leave...he asked where we would be for Xmas and we said probably Argentina in South America...and he said hed see us in Buenos Aires

Oooohhhhhh so.....were gonna get presssies from the man himself this year..cool hey.