Santa Claus Parade

Hello Readers,

This photo is of me testing some
glasses at H&M. Really festive.
Photo Credit: Danielle Gadsby

On Saturday Nov. 10/2018 I attended the Santa Claus Parade in Rovaniemi, Finland. If you didn't already know Rovaniemi is the Official Home of Santa Claus. It started from the Town hall and finished in the city center or Lordi Square as it is known to the locals - named after the Finnish rock band, Lordi, which is from Rovaniemi.

I was a little disappointed by the parade, however, it was wet and rainy all day. The parade did not have many elves walking with Santa and the single Rudolph reindeer. When Santa arrived at the city square he was unaccompanied by the reindeer. The highlight was when a team of kindergarten children sang him a few Christmas songs. Yes, the songs were in Finnish but that didn't matter as you could see the joy on their faces while singing to the man himself. I have added a video of one of the songs to the Finland Photos Page located at the top.

This is the children singing the songs to Santa Claus.
Photo Credit: Danielle Gadsby

When the children were finished Santa took the stage and thanked everyone for coming out. He talked in both Finnish and English and asked the crowd if they thought they were on the naughty list or the nice list. There was also explanation that you could see him in the two malls that afternoon for a short chat and some pictures (we chose not to do that). It is very different then at home, as we have mall Santa's in almost every mall near by at Christmas Time. The difference is though that Rovaniemi being the home of Santa Claus, there is a Santa Claus Village just on the outskirts of the city.

I will be attending Santa Claus Village's official opening of the Christmas season this Saturday and I hope that I will not be disappointed. I think the atmosphere will be different because there will be more Christmassy things there - like trees, elves, presents etc. All of this would be better if it would snow as well. Here in the Arctic Circle we are still without snow. We are patiently awaiting the white blanket that will make it seem that Christmas is coming.We are already headed into the dark winter, as the "sun" (it has been cloudy and grey for almost a month, there has not been any sunshine) has been setting around 3pm and rising each morning around 9am. Our daylight will get shorter before I go home for Christmas, but with no snow it feels even darker.

I hope everyone reading this is getting into the holiday spirit, whether they celebrate Christmas or some other holiday.

Thanks for reading....
Bye for now.