Around the world with Santa Claus

It’s that time of year when there’s celebration around the world. For me, travel has often proved doubly delightful when my overseas visits coincided with Christmas and New Year festivities.

It was in December 1980 that Visa Officer Katherine Mitchell at the American Embassy in Berne, Switzerland, handed back my passport the visa stamped on it. She wished me a merry and white Christmas, and happy travel on my bicycle in a land that was snow-swept on the American east coast. My first American Christmas was memorable with the sights and sounds of the festively dressed New World. Christmastime would conclude after ten days, with Epiphany signifying the Three Wise Men visiting the newborn baby.

A month earlier, I had my first overseas pre-Christmas experience in a professedly atheist country. However, crossing into communist East Germany, Christmas trees and decorative lighting were delightfully everywhere, all along the route from Hamburg to Berlin. At the communist shopping “malls” called ‘intershoppe’, which were nothing more than glorified grocery stores, the 1:1 German west-east currency exchange would pale with shop employees asking for dollars, offering five times the exchange rate “under the table”. They offered super rates for everything on the shelves. To make the celebrations grander, the food, the wine, the clothes (east European winter imports) and the gifts were so cheap under the planned economy, that with $10 one could live like a king for a weekend. Veteran journalist Kunhanandan Nair graciously hosted me at his residence in East Berlin’s Alexander Platz. Serving Kerala cuisine, he made Christmas Eve truly memorable for his teenaged guest.

In the years that followed, Asian countries proved to be ideal December destinations. While Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam were the national religions in many places here, Christmastime offered reason enough for celebration in the form of attractive shopping discounts.

Finally, it was in 2004 that I once again had a holiday that was memorably seasoned by the Christmas spirit. It’s a country in which a large section of the population is steeped in poverty. Christmastime, however, weaves a magical spell on the Philippines archipelago. The Filipinos seem to forget their troubles at the onset of the ‘ber’ months.

The Christmas spirit surfaces in September and surges in October, when radio stations are flooded with requests for the Christmas songs of Jim Reeves and Cliff Richards. By November, the shopping arcades and malls lining Ayala Avenue in capital Manila and elsewhere are decked up, welcoming visitors with the Tagalog greeting “ Mabuhay ” and offering customers more and more freebies. Come December, Manila’s coastal thoroughfare — Roxas Boulevard — joins in the act with large and pretty lanterns lining the road. Mid-December sees large crowds thronging the shopping malls.

Christmas radiates cheer and hope, and the spirit of giving. Even as the festive goodies and freebies fly off the shelves at the Landmark and Glorietta malls, standing in wait outside are the many poor folk offering to gift-wrap the purchases at a minimum charge.

A newly married couple went back into Glorietta and returned with a T-shirt that they presented to the packer. The surprised woman thanked the couple profusely with “ Maraming Salamat ”. Taxi drivers and hotel waiters too are usually tipped heavily during this season.

At nightfall, Roxas Boulevard comes alive with the voices of schoolchildren singing Christmas carols in English and Tagalog.

The following December, we fly into Hong Kong and are greeted at the airport by the sight of a tall decorated Christmas tree and a group of ‘Santa’ children holding candles. We push candies into their hands. As the A21 bus winds it way to our hotel in Tsim Sha Tsui, Nathan Road — the main thoroughfare — is buzzing as usual with bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Stepping outside our hotel the next morning, we are struck by a strange sight: Nathan Road does not have a single vehicle and pedestrians have taken over the driving lanes. Our hotel manager explains that Nathan Road would remain closed to vehicular traffic for Christmas Eve and the next day.

By afternoon, hundreds of pedestrians arrive at the junction of Salisbury Road overlooking Hong Kong’s “Manhattan” across the sea waters. With an hour to midnight, the place is teeming with thousands of cheerleaders. That’s when the fantastic fireworks begin. Across Salisbury Road, the multitude of onlookers cry out “Hoooa, Hoooa” in childlike delight. The cheers turn louder with every passing minute. Wireless-equipped police officers closely monitor the proceedings, even as ambulances wait on the ready, just in case...

As the LCD screen near our hotel starts the countdown, a million others appear to join in with 5,4,3,2,1… Merry Christmas! All of us cheer and shake hands with each other. Opposite the Mirador Mansion, schoolchildren begin a chorus of carols and the crowd responds with applause. Further away, university students stand with different sized bells, tapping them in perfect rhythm to play Jingle Bells and more...

It is 6 a.m. when we finally head back to our hotel after a magnificent night spent in heralding Christmas.

Italy and Finland hold a special place during the Christmas season. Santa Claus, or Saint Nicholas, is believed to have been born in Italy’s Bari, while Rudolf the red-nosed reindeer is from the woods north of Espoo in Finland. In December 2007 we experienced the magic of Bari, aglow with decorations and lights, all the way from the Saint’s dedicated church to the seashore a few miles away.

Germany’s Christmas Fair in Wiesbaden and the students’ band at the Dresden cathedral brightened up my travels in that country in December 2009.

Helsinki hosts Scandinavia’s grandest Christmas parade on the last Sunday of November. On the steps of the Lutheran cathedral above the Senate Square, leading singers and musicians entertain the audience with carols and seasonal songs.

The cavalcade begins at the Senate Square, and includes boys dressed as snowmen, little girls dressed as angels in white, and huskies pulling sledges.

Passing through the main shopping street, Aleksanterinkatu, the parade ends at sundown to symbolically usher in the Christmas spirit. Finnish businesses and shopping centres, starting with Stockmann’s in the capital city, adorn themselves with dazzling lights.

Across the Baltic, in Estonia, the capital city Tallinn’s cobblestoned streets pulse with the excitement of the festive season. The Town Hall, market square, offices and shops turn into little ‘Christmas Fairs’, hosting Santa in the company of live reindeer, penguins, birds and animals.

At Tallinn port, shipping representatives call out to visitors for trips to St. Petersburg, dubbed the “place to be at during December”. Temporary visas and sightseeing tickets are issued to all passengers arriving in this historic Russian port city to partake of its Christmas celebrations and gaze at its ancient domed cathedrals, which inspired the design of the Capitol building in distant Washington D.C.

We should make the voyage to St. Petersburg next Christmas, we tell ourselves.