Finland 

day 5

The Northern Lights Village has several additional experiences you can add to your reservation. Our two youngest kids (10, 12) and I stayed at the village and participated in the Santa Adventure experience, while the others took the car to Levi Ski Resort for skiing and snowboarding fun.  If you ask my youngest two, to their surprise, the Santa Adventure was their favorite activity of the trip. This far surpassed our visit with Santa in Santa’s Village in Rovaniemi. Because of the time of year, we were the only participants, so it felt like a private event and made it extra special. Two excited, friendly elves skipped through the parking lot to retrieve us, and we skipped back into the woods with them to begin our adventure. 

We were able to bake and decorate gingerbread cookies, soak in a leisurely reindeer sleigh ride through a short trail in the forest, enter an elf hut to roast marshmallows and drink hot chocolate, and hop in a sleigh pulled by the elf-mobile on a quest to find Santa.

Though I don’t want to give away too many secrets, our visit with Santa included funny interruptions from his sneaky elves, another birthday song for me, and conversations that indicated Santa knew quite a bit about us, which led the kids to be a bit perplexed and wide-eyed. He gifted me a reindeer antler keychain for my birthday, and the kids with little Lapland husky dog stuffed animals. These are treasured souvenirs. We spent the rest of the day relaxing, sledding and playing in the snow at the resort. 

The skiing/snowboarding crew had a fun day on the mountain. While my daughter reported she would not choose to snowboard there again, my husband and son enjoyed themselves with multiple intermediate ski runs and a variety of lift options.

My daughter felt the temperature was difficult, with times she was cold and bundled and other times she was removing layers, and thought the mountain was difficult to navigate. She also needed to be on beginner runs, but shared they weren’t snowboard friendly, as she would get stuck often and struggled to get downward momentum. (mountain pictures) They all felt the town was very cute and inviting in that area as well, with a variety of shops, restaurants, cafes, and hotels. 