On the Tenth Day of Christmas

... I googled "Rovaniemi, Finland". AKA "the North Pole".

Enquiring minds are asking: why? Because it is where Santa Claus' workshop can be found. Or, as he is known by his homies, Santa Clausen. Located right on top of the Arctic Circle, it is promoted as a popular vacation destination. Surely, most people would want to go. Except for Dianne, who is allergic to snow. And Nichole, who seems to be developing a sudden allergy to snow as well.

These are the world headquarters where all of the Christmas toys are made by REAL ELVES.

Okay, so they don't look like what I imagined, either. In fact, they look like they've spent way too many hours in the tanning booth. But these are real elves. How do I know? Because they live at Santa's empire at the North Pole.

There are also REAL REINDEER. Unfortunately, Rudolph is only an urban myth.



This is Mrs. Clausen. Quite the little vixen, isn't she? Now we know why Santa is so jolly all the time. (I am refraining from the HOHOHO joke I am dying to make right now. Because that would be so wrong 2 nights before Christmas.)

Santa really keeps huge volumes of Naughty and Nice lists. (Can you guess which list Mrs. Claus ends up on each year?)

Here are some other little known Santa facts:

Santa doesn't actually live at the North Pole. He lives in the mountains in a town called Korvatunteri and commutes to his office at the NP every day.


Santa likes to do his part for the environment. Note he drives an energy-conserving subcompact for his daily commute.


Santa concludes his Christmas Eve ride with a sauna (prepared by the Sauna Elf (I'm not making this up)) and a feast that includes prune soup, ham, a casserole made of carrots, turnips and potaotes, and gingerbread. All washed down with reindeer milk and brewskis. I know I'd ride around the world all night through the frigid cold delivering millions of gifts if I had that kind of meal to look forward to. Yummo.

Santa is quite an entrepreneur. He has his own post office and amusement park. You can actually visit Santa at his office and watch him work. And for a small fortune, you can have a picture taken too.

You can also buy lots and lots of souvenirs.

But who can blame the big guy? You didn't think Christmas is free did you?

What do you mean you still don't believe in Santa Claus? Then go and read about him for yourself at his official website.

What's more, you can be an Official Santa Stalker! You can spy on him 24/7. In fact, if you are watching the live webcam at midnight Finnish time, you'll probably be able to watch liftoff.

Santa's webcam

And you can even watch throughout the night as he flies around the world and track Santa by radar. This is much more comfortable and convenient than sitting by the window, watching the sky for hours on end. I wonder if kids appreciate how good they have it these days.



PS - in case you're wondering where the knitting content went to, the truth is there hasn't been much knitting going on around here. I'd have to guess that about, ummmm, 100% of the gifts I was planning to knit in time for Christmas are UFO's. That means I'm really counting on Mr. Clausen to help me out this year.