Netflix has been running a series of original Christmas movies over the last week or so and I have watched a few of them. I admit that the ones I usually am drawn to are the romances. "A Castle for Christmas" was a recent good one. This evening, however, I was pulled into watching what was essentially a children's story, a variation on the origin of Santa stories. I turned it on when I discovered that it starred one of my favorite actors, Dame Maggie Smith. She's been in Downton Abby and so many other great shows. The fact that she has more wrinkles than I do simply increases my admiration. So I was prepared to enjoy her performance, which I did, but I discovered a whole other dimension. It turns out that the movie was filmed in the far northern reaches of Finland where I visited a few years ago. As I watched the views of seemingly endless sweeps of snow and pine trees, little log cabins, and a reindeer pulling a wooden sleigh while the young hero trudged through the cold, I remembered that visit. The area of Finland we visited was also part of the territory of Lapland. This is where we rode in a one-reindeer sleigh, visited "the real Santa" in his village, rode in a dog-sled and trudged through a lot of cold. I have never been colder in my life than on that trip. Friends I was traveling with kept saying it was their favorite trip ever, but I found myself thinking longingly of hot, sunny Spain. So the movie was a fun flashback to a very interesting trip, but without the cold. Very nice indeed.
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