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The site is rovaniemi.fi /santa /midres /english /history /hist _mai.htm; and it gives a brief history of the origins of the man we know today as Santa Claus. Most of what follows is picked up nearly verbatim from that site.

Like many other customs surrounding Christmas, Santa Claus owes at least as much, if not more, to the non-Christian traditions of Europe as to Christianity itself. The Palestinian tradition on Christ mentions three wise men or the magi, but they came from the east and did not come riding on a sleigh pulled by reindeer.

According to the site mentioned above, the basis for the Christian-era Santa Claus is Bishop Nicholas of Smyrna (Izmir), in what is now Turkey. Nicholas lived in the 4th century AD. He was very rich, generous and loving toward children; often giving poor children joy by throwing gifts in through their windows. But obviously there were no reindeer here, which shows that our Santa Claus is the amalgam of many myths and traditions.

The Orthodox Church later raised St Nicholas, miracle worker, to a position of great esteem. For example, it was in his honour that Russia’s oldest church was built. For its part, the Roman Catholic Church honoured Nicholas as one who helped children and the poor. St Nicholas became the patron saint of children and seafarers. His name day is December 6.

In the Protestant areas of central and northern Germany, St Nicholas later became known as `der Weinachtsmann.’ In England he came to be called Father Christmas. St Nicholas made his way to the United States with Dutch immigrants, and began to be referred to as Santa Claus.

In North American poetry and illustrations, Santa Claus, in his white beard, red jacket and pompom-topped cap, would sally forth on the night before Christmas in his sleigh, pulled by eight reindeer, and climb down chimneys to leave his gifts in stockings children set out on the fireplace’s mantelpiece. Even this tradition is of extremely modern vintage.

To children curious to know where Santa Claus actually came from, the answer was that he lived at the North Pole, where his Christmas-gift workshop was also located. Only in 1925 was it realised that this could not be so, since grazing reindeer would not be possible at the North Pole.

So, newspapers `revealed’ that Santa Claus, in fact, lived in Finnish Lapland. "Uncle Markus", Markus Rautio, who compered the popular "Children’s hour" on Finnish public radio, revealed the great secret for the first time in 1927: Santa Claus lives on Lapland’s Korvatunturi — "Ear Fell".

According to Santa’s web site, the fell, which is situated directly on Finland’s eastern frontier, somewhat resembles a hare’s ears — which are in fact Santa Claus’s ears, with which he listens to hear if the world’s children are being nice. Santa has the assistance of a busy group of elves, who have quite their own history in Scandinavian legend.

Since the 1950s, Santa has happily sojourned at Napapiiri, near Rovaniemi, at times other than Christmas, to meet children and the young at heart. By 1985, his visits to Napapiiri had become so regular that he established his own Santa Claus office there. He comes there every day of the year, to hear what children want for Christmas and to talk with children who have arrived from around the world. Santa Claus Village is also the location of Santa’s main Post Office, which receives children’s letters from the four corners of the world.