Computer present for Santa

Press, 24 December 1986, Page 8

Computer present for Santa

By

Peter Verschoor

of

Reuters (through NZPA) ROVANIEMI Santa Claus, the man with the long white beard who lives above the Arctic Circle, is getting a Christmas present himself this year — a computer to answer his fan mail. Next year Santa will use the computer, a gift from a large computer company, to answer the hundreds of thousands of letters children from all around the world send him each year. Answering mail from children is one of the most important activities in Santa Claus Village at Rovaniemi, in Finnish Lapland, exactly on the Arctic Circle.

The Santa Claus project, supported by the Finnish Tourist Board and Lapland’s Development Fund, was launched in December, 1984, by the Governor of Lapland who de-

dared his whole province the “Official Residence of Santa Claus.” The village in Rovaniemi was opened in June, 1985, at a site where a Santa Post Office had been answering letters from children for the previous eight years. It has welcomed 250,000 visitors since the opening. The village boasts a log cabin that serves as a combined post office and residence for Santa, as well as shops selling Finnish and Lapp handicrafts. Santa received letters from 91 countries last year, with Australia and Japan topping the list after Finland. “Last year we had almost 200,000 letters and this year we expect almost 300,000, so we will start using the computer to make address labels and for statistical purposes,” a spokeswomen Ms Kati Manner, of the

Santa Claus Land project, said.

“Every child gets an answer, we send them a printed letter with Santa’s greetings and a surprise game.” The letters vary from charming effusions to straightforward requests for presents. “Dear Mr Santa Claus, I’d like to become a computer programmer in the future. In your case, is Santa the main job or do you have another one? My hobby is listening to music and going to a movie. If I can see you, could you go to a movie with me,” wrote Asami, aged 13, from Japan. “We got one letter from a little boy which just said: ‘Dear Santa Claus, I have already enough socks.’ It was one of the shortest letters we ever got,” Ms Manner said. The village employs a full-time person to portray

Santa. This Santa does not give personal details but told Reuters: “I know people have mentioned different places but I can assure you that only one location is the right one: I have always lived in Finnish Lapland.”

Around the time that Finland’s Santa was pre-

paring to settle in Rovaniemi, its western neighbour, Sweden, opened a similar centre for Santa Claus.

A British travel agency has since last year organised regular day trips from London in the Concorde to see Santa in. Finnish Lapland.