Where does Santa live? This is a harder question to answer than you might think Lifestyle News

Dennis says that Santa is in Greenland. Sweden suggests Mora is the place, and has built the theme park Santaworld.

These places definitely look like white snow in winter and reindeer. They are also close to the North Pole.

A not so fun tradition

They have old and often very disturbing folklore about the man in red.

Pagan Finns used to celebrate St. Knot’s Day in winter January, with men in fur jackets, nuttipukki, going door to door with sacks of gifts. No gifts were given except Nuttipukki and children used to cry. They used to demand gifts and would curse any household that didn’t give gifts with bad luck.

Eventually Nuttipukki, the gift receiver, became Jaulupukki, the gift giver. In other northern traditions, such as Iceland’s Yule Lads, this visitor gave gifts but only to well-behaved children.

In the 19th century, Santa Claus was settled in popular awareness more or less what we think of now: a jolly old man with a beard, a sleigh, reindeer and gifts, living in a northern and cold place. That image built on but sanitized the more grotesque European folklore of elves, gnomes, and other supernatural beings who brought or demanded gifts.

But standardizing Santa’s presence did not keep him where he actually lived and worked.

In the mid-19th century painter Thomas Nast depicted Santa as a jolly old man. Harper’s WeeklyAnd illustration and archetype ceased. But Nast depicted Santa in a winter landscape.

It could be the North Pole, and in 1866 no one had actually been to the Pole. No explorer had been there until 1926, leaving Santa, if he lived there, undisturbed in his workshop.

Finland’s tourism industry suggests that Korvatunturi in Lapland is where Santa keeps his workshop. (Photo: Freepik)

Santa and territorial disputes

Medieval and pagan mythology in Finland and Scandinavia lends some credibility to these countries’ attempts to claim Santa as their own. After all, these are old legends.

Other countries take a more modern approach. The Canadian government ensures Christmas happens every year by allowing Santa to travel through Canadian airspace. Taking it a step further, in 2013 Stephen Harper’s Conservative government issued Canadian passports to Santa and his wife.

That act might seem twee or whimsical or just some Christmas fun for kids, but it might also show that some governments want to claim more than Santa.

Harper’s gesture comes at a time of international political controversy over ownership of the North Pole and Canada’s claim to the Arctic regions in particular.

Somewhere hotter than the poles

But are all these countries wrong, or opportunistic? Despite what we think, where Santa actually comes from is much hotter and much further east – and it would be uncomfortable to wear those red clothes.

Santa Claus is a name derived from Sinterklaas or Saint Nicholas. Along with the pagan elves and gnomes, another element in the long and very complicated history of Santa is the Christian bishop of Smyrna, Saint Nicholas. Or is that Myra’s Nicholas? Smyrna, now called Izmir in Turkey, and Myra, now Demre in Turkey, are both associated with Nicholas. As in Northern Europe, different places in Anatolia compete to be associated with Santa.

Nicholas is the patron saint of everything, including archers and brewers but also children and sailors. The link with children explains the later association with Santa, especially as Saint Nicholas gave gifts to children. His story is known around the world because of his links with sailors.

A 2017 archaeological dig under the Church of St. Nicholas in Turku was believed to have uncovered the burial site and thus the body of St. Nicholas.

A grave full of old bones isn’t Christmassy, ​​but it can be an authentic link between place and person that no amount of snow or reindeer can match in Northern Europe.