Foolish plots to kidnap Santa Claus

Around the world innocent children have for years been told lies about the true whereabouts of Santa Claus.

Dutch children, for instance, live in a fantasy world in which Spain is the homeland of Sinterklaas and his trusty helper Zwarte Piet. How on earth could they travel emission-free - Santa being as Green as they come - from, let’s say Bilbao, to Amsterdam with several hundred lorryloads of Chinese-made toys? Perleeese!

This is far from the only misunderstanding. Sometimes, as is well known, elderly men like to dress up in red skirts and become friendly with children. It is not something I propose to go into here, but this fact may help to explain the popish plot behind the French Saint Nicolas. Enough said.

The Danes like to think that Asia begins in Malmö, southern Sweden. This may explain the origins of another fallacy and Danes’ incapacity to tolerate the idea that Santa would live anywhere in Lapland. Hence the absurd idea of Santa as a Greenlander.

An absurd ‘Santa Village’ was even constructed by Danish TV as the set for a series to delude children. More sensitive readers should skip to the next paragraph, because the truth behind the scenes is upsetting: the stage reindeer was eaten by a polar bear, then replaced by a stuffed one. No surprise that few have found this unreality-TV very convincing.

Not to be outdone, the Swedes have made a pathetic effort to declare a place called Mora the home of Santa. Those who have by accident visited Mora will know that the sharpest thing there is a clumsy red wooden horse and the second sharpest is a clumsy red knife.

As anyone serious knows, the Finns have long held the most serious claim to Santa, who in fact lives in a place called Korvatunturi. This might sound like an obscure vegetarian dish from Bengal; actually it is a cave inside a hill. Those who have been there say it resembles a huge factory in a Bond movie.

All the toys are made in Korvatunturi, though the red socks nowadays come from China, a small reminder of the many blessings of globalisation.

Santa travels to Rovaniemi, which may be another Bengali meal when it’s not a town, during the off-season. Santa Claus’ headquarters is eight kilometres north of Rovaniemi, right next to the Arctic Circle. There he meets and greets spoilt British children, who fly there on jet planes and have the tiresome habit of peeing in his lap during their allotted ten minutes; this may explain why Santa’s working outfit is Gore-Tex overalls.

But the main thing is that it is environmentally friendly. You don’t get more sustainable than Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer flying his sleigh, with hardly an emission to speak of apart from those we don’t talk about in polite society. Even that global chiller Al Gore might approve.

Around the world innocent children have for years been told lies about the true whereabouts of Santa Claus.