Not so different

When I was a kid, we spent the long summer holidays in a caravan park by a lake that opened to the Pacific Ocean. As Christmas approached, the days grew hotter. We spent our days swimming in the cool water of the lake, fishing from an aluminimun dinghy in the whispering shadows of leaning casuarina trees, our hand-lines disappearing into the darkness of a deep bend in the current beneath us. Or we trekked through sand dunes to the beach, dashing between patches of shade to avoid the burning heat of the sand on the soles of our feet, ears tuned to the growing thunder of waves crashing on the shore, racing each other to the top of the last dune to be the first to see the sweeping span of white sandy beach stretching toward the rocky headland shimmering in a distant heat haze. On Christmas Eve, the children gathered by the lake’s boat ramp at the end of the caravan park to see Santa arrive. Dozens of kids, sand in our hair and between our toes, wrapped in bright beach towels, clustered in a pack in the heat of the afternoon sun, looking out for the motor boat driving up the lake towards us, a red and white figure standing at the prow, waving. We’d rush to meet him as he disembarked at the ramp with his bag of small gifts – one for each child – as the cool waves from the wake of the boat’s arrival washed over our bare feet.

In Nuuk, Santa arrives on Christmas Eve in a similarly unique way. Instead of a motor boat on a lake in the heat of the afternoon, Santa arrives by helicopter in the long yellow rays of the winter sun. Dozens of kids, wrapped in their winter coats, wait on the open patch of snow that looks down to the silvery sea, listening for the deep whirr of the helicopter blades and watching to spot the bright red machine against the pale blue sky turn toward them. As it descends, the thrilling sound of the roaring rotors fills the air and the frigid air washes out against the waiting crowd. And when the rotors wind to a stop, the children rush in as Santa exits the helicopter with his sack of gifts.

We’re not so different.