- ARCTIC CIRCLE, Finland
(Reuters) -- The song goes that Santa "knows if you've been bad or
good, so be good for goodness sake!".
-
- But have we ever sought to find out if Santa's been naughty
or nice?
-
- In Finland at least, the unthinkable is true - the jolly
old man has a dark past.
-
- The forefather of the portly, bearded man, known in Finland
as Joulupukki, was not dressed in red, did not greet children with smiles
and he certainly brought no gifts.
-
- Instead Joulupukki, literally "yule goat",
donned horns and an animal hide and covered his face with soot or a bark
mask. He travelled from house to house frightening children with his wild
dancing and singing, and expected offerings of food and booze.
-
- The form this Christmas-time character took varied greatly
in different parts of the country. According to some versions of the legend
he also brought sticks with which to whip naughty children. Stingy households
suffered the goat's insults.
-
- No one knows exactly how or when, but as cultural influences
from elsewhere spread into Finland, this beast transformed into the smiling
Santa Claus that now meets children from around the world at his log cabin
in Finland's Arctic Circle.
-
- "The history of Santa Claus is an interwoven cultural
braid. Santa Claus, like other cultural phenomena, is a reflection of its
time," says Ahti Ahonen, regional Christmas coordinator in Rovaniemi,
the capital of Finnish Lapland.
-
- The name is all that now remains of the nasty old goat,
and the man himself says much of his past is exaggerated.
-
- "In much the same way as time makes good memories
better, it can also make frightening memories worse," Santa Claus
said, rocking in his chair and sipping tea during a break from replying
to the half a million letters he receives every year.
-
- PRESENTS FOR BABY REINDEER
-
- Santa's modern look is often attributed to Coca-Cola's
Christmas advertisements from the 1930s by US-born artist Haddon Sundblom,
whose family roots stretch to Finland's autonomous Aland islands.
-
- "It is often claimed that Santa's red outfit comes
from Coca-Cola, but I would argue that Coca-Cola got the red from Scandinavian
elf mythology," says Ahonen, citing pictures of bearded, red-clad,
rosy-cheeked elves from the early 1900s.
-
- Either way, a red-robed Father Christmas is arguably
one of the most popular images used by companies to advertise their wares
at Christmas, the modern celebration of mass consumption.
-
- Santa himself is not concerned about multiple, pricey
presents taking the limelight, and says his most important role remains
"to make the child living in every person smile".
-
- The best thing about Christmas continues to be that it
brings families together, he says. This was the case already in the times
of the naughty old yule goat when families celebrated the darkest time
of the winter with feasts and homemade candles.
-
- "Many people buy lots of presents to compensate
for their busy schedules, but my observation is that there is also a countertrend.
A lot of families agree that everyone gets one present at Christmas and
that's it," Santa said.
-
- Many of the 500,000-odd visitors to his Arctic Circle
cabin in Rovaniemi every year also bring Father Christmas gifts.
-
- Among the most common are pacifiers kids have grown out
of and want to donate to Santa's baby reindeer. A clear, plastic bin at
his post office is filled to the brim with these.
-
- SMILE, SAYS SANTA
-
- At Santa's cabin, age is not an indication of status.
While in the days of the yule goat the focus was on the adult pleasures
for the often virile young "Santa", children are now at centre
stage.
-
- "The world's big problems are caused by children
growing up and becoming too grown up and taking themselves too seriously,"
Santa says, furrowing his brow.
-
- A wall near his rocking chair is lined with pictures
of fans young and old, including mobile phone group Nokia Chief Executive
Jorma Ollila and mid-1990s girl band The Spice Girls.
-
- The wide grins suggest wisdom in the old man's words:
"Whether you're a child or just young at heart, if everyone smiled
at each other life would be easier for all of us."
-
- His attitude towards niceness is also more lenient than
one might imagine.
-
- "I've thought about this a lot, and I don't think
it's so important to emphasise that if you're naughty you'll get sticks,
that if you're not nice you won't get any presents," Santa said.
-
- "This isn't the core of my being. Children themselves
know, although they sometimes forget, what's wrong and what's right, what's
naughty, what's nice. Why should we be so severe with kids when even those
who make the rules sometimes forget them?"
-
- More important than threatening children with no presents
is providing responsible adult role models, he said.
-
- "I sometimes ask kids who come to see me whether
mum and dad have been nice. This makes parents hurry their kids away."
-
- Copyright 2004 Reuters Limited.
-
- http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13632789
|
