Visiting You-know-who in Lapland

You know us, here at GTC, nothing makes us a happy as a good strong north wind blowing down from the Arctic; throw in some snow and a couple of reindeer and we are beside ourselves with joy, so when the opportunity cropped up to pop over to Lapland and visit Father Christmas and his elves for a couple of days, I jumped at the chance.

And, yes, they do say that Christmas is about kids, so I felt morally obliged to be accompanied by a boisterous two year old and my husband. He just knew the fun was about to start when we boarded the plane and were confronted with cabin crew wearing Christmas hats, and carol song sheets carefully placed on all the seats. It was actually rather lovely; Dan did the kids' Xmas word searches like all the other Dads, while the little ones were herded up the front and had a whale of a time singing carols into the public address system. I believe all the mothers just drank gin.

We stayed at the Hotel Levitunturi, only 15 mins drive from Kitila airport in Finland; as there are only a few hours of daylight it was pitch dark when we arrived, but the whole town was picked out in fairylights and looked beautiful under a blanket of snow (although when the coach pulled up in front of a huge LED display reading -16 degrees everyone collectively sucked theer teeth and started scrabbling for mittens).

Fear not however, if you do not actually like the cold very much. On this particular break the cost of thermal suits is included, but most of the time we were in Lapland the temperature stayed around the -16 mark and I was absolutely fine in my skiing jacket, salopettes, a fleece and my trusty M and S thermals. Also a number of the activities have kota thoughtfully provided; these are lovely little wooden huts with warm woodburners and hot berry juice and biscuits so you can take shelter from the cold and these are absolutely brilliant when the wind is starting to burn your ears!