Readers in Council,
The Japan Times,
5-4, Shibaura 4-chome,
Minato-ku, Tokyo 108-0023
Now that Halloween has passed the next big event to look forward to is Christmas. As usual, I expect Finland to dispatch a goodwill Santa to Japan to promote Lapland, which boasts many Santa Claus accoutrements - reindeer, sleigh rides, jingle bells, etc. And, I expect the newspapers to lap it up. But it’s a shame, really, because it is so wrong. Everyone knows that Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, which is in Canada, not in Lapland, which is in Finland. But thanks to the publicity surrounding the annual false Finnish Santa, too few Japanese know the truth.
I am not a Scrooge, and I am not a humbug. I am not looking for coal in my stocking. I’m looking every year for Santa from the true Great White North. I know he’s there because he answers my letters.