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Wed, Nov 19, 2008
AsiaOne
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Christmas is a time for love, hope, charity... and Santa!
The real Santa dropped by our sunny little island last week. Yes, he's real, with beard, paunch and all.
But his flying sleigh isn't, since Santa arrived on a plane where he passed through our immigration checkpoint at the Changi International Airport.
Despite that, there was plenty of Christmas cheer with his arrival still.
He was received by crowds of school children eager to meet the jolly old man in real life.
The Finnish Santa Claus was in Singapore for the first time to participate in the annual Orchard Road Christmas Light-Up 2008 and to cheer up young cancer patients on his visit to local hospitals. He brought Christmas gifts specially flown in from Santa Village in Finland, when he visited 100 children at KK Women's and Children's Hospital and National University Hospital.
His own home is on the mountain of Korvatunturi, Lapland, a Finnish town, where Santa donates gifts to children all around the world every year as part of the Santa Claus Finland Foundation.
During his visit, he managed to squeeze in some time to present a Christmas gift to Madam Azlinawati Bte Abdul Maleh, 30, a homemaker, at a media launch of Singapore's first Santa Claus Club. The gift was a sofa set donated by Scanteak, a furnishing company.
Madam Azlinawati's seven year-old daughter, Aina Syara Binte Anwar, has leukemia. She is unable to attend school because she has to undergo medical treatment for a period of two years.
The family, who is under the care of the Children's Cancer Foundation, was chosen to receive the gift because they do not have a sofa set.
When AsiaOne spoke to Mdm Azlinawati, she said she was very excited about the gift and pleasantly surprised as she only found out about it some hours before meeting Santa Claus.
"It fits well and it is good for my daughter to rest at home," said Mdm Azlinawati.
Other than charity work, Santa also met with Mr Abdullah Tarmugi, Speaker of Parliament, who was Guest-of-Honour at the Orchard Road light-up last Saturday.
In between his public engagements, AsiaOne caught up with Mr Claus during his short stay in Singapore last week. |
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Q: How do you become Santa? Do you have to go to a Santa school?
A: "No, I haven't. At that time, there was no Santa school. But my mother was a famous author in Finland and she wrote books for children, so I lived my whole youth in fairy-tale world- it was very easy to start work as Santa. My santa age is about 360 years old, but I've been a Santa for 48 years- that's a pretty long time."
Q: What qualities should a good Santa have?
A: "The most important thing is that he loves children. And when Santa does his work, he has to do it with his heart and he has to give all his time. Any place, anytime, he is Santa."
Q: Do children ask if you're the real Santa?
A: "Actually they don't ask if I'm the real Santa, they ask if my beard is real. And I can tell you always, it is real. This is also very real (points to his paunch). And I know I have Santa's nose."
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