We got up late and sledged and The Princess made more ice baubles because she’s always wanted to and it’s never been cold enough. Though overnight it snowed so we found out that that thing they say about snow being insulating is genuinely true – the ice baubles under the snow didn’t freeze overnight because they didn’t get cold enough!
She brought food colouring especially to make them.
Today the Tui activity bus took us to see Father Christmas but first we went to a hill to sledge on and saw a massive snowman and sofas made out of blocks of ice and snow. They had reindeer skins thrown on them, like the dogsled yesterday, I think I read somewhere they’re really waterproof, so they can get snowed on and then brushed off and they’ll be fine.
But the big news wasn’t about the cool snowman or the reindeer skins. See I saw a little Moomin house, where we could go to get hot berry squash (something I am loving about Finland is the berry juice) and I realised something about all the houses I’ve seen here and there. See it turns out that the cute vernacular architecture in the illustrations of Moomin books aren’t just for the books! They’re traditional Finnish houses and they’re AWESOME!
The Moomin house made me almost as happy as the fact I found Moomin Tea which my Snufkin Buddy recommended me in the K-Mart in Ruka.
Then we headed into a lovely house to wake Father Christmas with a Finnish Christmas song and learnt that Father Christmas in Finnish is Joulapukki. Also I had worried that he was going to be too schmaltzy but I don’t think Finns (or Lapps for that matter) do schmaltzy.
He had an edge to him, it was great, he threatened to take one kid’s passport in return for a lifetime of servitude, offered to turn us into elves in return for a hundred years of life. He was very much an older elf godfathering his way through an organised workforce.
The other thing that surprised me was that he invited the kids to sit on his lap, which I haven’t seen in the UK… well actually I haven’t seen in since the Bonsai Kaiju was born so I guess the last time I saw actual lap sitting was when I was the kid seeing Father Christmas. I mentioned that to DS Luke and he suggested that Finland hadn’t had the pedo-saturation moment of the UK. Which was probably pretty accurate to be fair, horrific though.
Managed to send postcards from Santa’s holiday home (he had explained he had four holiday homes circling his workshop and that this was one) which made me happy. we got the bus to drop us off in Ruka proper, had reindeer burgers and took the cable car over the mountain home. Stopped off at the top for a beer (hot chocolates for the kids) and discovered that the three different beers on offer fit our three preferences, I finished the lager, Britney finished the IPA and The Princess the dark beer.
The home to the cabin and sledging and sauna.