Father Christmas

He's jolly, he's red, and he never brings you what you really want: he's Father Christmas. KS tracks down the man who is Christmas to find out what makes him go “Ho ho ho!”

Father Christmas, being Father Christmas, sent a sleigh to meet me at Helsinki airport to take me on the final leg to his home in Lapland's Korvatunturi. As the sleigh banked over the frozen forests before landing, I felt a twinge
of anxiety: what would it be like to meet a legend?

Father Christmas was born as plain old Nicholas in Patara, Turkey, in the third century. “My parents died when I was young and I took it rather badly. I went around town petulantly throwing things through the windows of homes. It was some kind of attention thing. As it happened, my folks were well off and the poor people were rather impressed at the bric-a-brac I was lobbing at them. They thought I was giving out presents. I was young and was very impressed with all the nice-guy attention I was getting and started to take it seriously … and that's where all the peace and niceness comes from.”

But Santa didn't stay in Turkey and turned out to be something of a wanderer. With his discreet way of working, no one knew who he really was or what he was. For a long time Europeans believed he was an elf. Different names started to stick to him. In Germany for example he was known as Weinachtsmann, in Britain he picked up the name Father Christmas and his Dutch name Sinter Klaas became Santa Claus in the US.

Although a jolly holiday, Christmas has not been without its crises. In 1647, Oliver Cromwell made Christmas celebrations illegal and arrested anyone having a good time. The ban was repealed in 1660 when the Puritans lost power. In 1997, Father Christmas was kidnapped in a coup by Jack Skellington and the citizens of Halloween Town, an event recreated in the movie Nightmare before Christmas.

“Actually, I liked the Halloween Christmas. There was something refreshingly daring about it,” Santa reveals. “But it wasn't sustainable, and anyway it was my job they were trying to steal.”
Ironically, commercialisation, which began in Britain in 1843 when JC Horsley created the first Christmas card, has both threatened and sustained the holiday. Ever the pragmatist, Father Christmas adapted to the changing face of his day.

When I made reference to Coca-Cola designing his handsome robes Father Christmas guffawed and rubbished the idea. “Pure myth, he boomed happily.” The red robes were originally a present from an American illustrator, Louis Prang, in 1885. But Coke made me an unending supply of the things for their advertisements in the 1930s and it became impossible to wear anything else!”

Eventually, anxieties about the hijacking of his day by the forces of commercialism led Father Christmas to some extreme acts. Just before Christmas 1968, he and some of his little helpers descended on the toy department of London's Selfridge's where he distributed the toys direct from the store shelves to the incredulous but delighted children. The staff called the police and the shoppers were treated to the sight of Santa being chased and arrested while security guards snatched the toys back from the children. The mention of this incident brings a twinkle to his eye.

“The police didn't believe it was really me. In the end I said that we were the anarchists known as King Mob and that satisfied them and they let us go. Ho ho ho!”

These days, Father Christmas is more sanguine about the fate of his holiday and has even adapted to it. In 2000 he opened a love hotel — Little Chappel Christmas in Umeda. On opening day, queues of lovers stretched right around the block waiting to try out the beds.

“One final question. Do you, in fact, exist?”

Santa, taps the side of his nose, gives a big wink. “If you're very good, you'll find out in December.”

Text & Photos: KS