Santa was quoted as saying:

“I live here in Lapland and anybody who doesn’t believe, I wish a warm welcome to come and meet me and see how it is here,” he told Reuters in English, with a faint Finnish accent.

“Of course this is the homeland of reindeer, and everyone knows I travel with reindeer,” he said by telephone.

In a rare grumble, he said children never doubted that Lapland was his home. “It’s always the media that brings this question up. I have never met a five-year-old who comes here and asks: ‘Am I in the right place?’,” he said.