Christmas at Frozen Falls

by Kiley Dunbar

  ‘No, whatever happens with Niilo, I’ll be keeping it strictly off public record, thanks very much,’ she says.

  ‘So something’s going to happen?’ I say with a teasing laugh, wishing my lovely friend could at last have a bit of love in her life, and not just between the pages of the novels she reads. Nari’s about to tell me off, when we both hear a sublime sound, and we turn to one another, eyes wide.

  ‘Is someone singing?’ Nari says.

  We look all around searching for the source of the soaring voice resonating in the air and the deep melodious piano sounds that seem to be rumbling through the ground beneath our feet.

  ‘It’s coming from over there,’ I say. ‘Through those trees.’

  * * *

  The church stands alone by the roadside, concealed by great Christmas trees and white-trunked birches. The timber building has a high roof pointing heavenward with a white cross on top, and looks as though it has stood on this spot for centuries in spite of its modern architecture.

  Nari photographs the handwritten sign on the door using her phone, does some kind of technical jiggery-pokery, and magically translates the words.

  ‘It says it’s open and all are welcome, apparently. There’s a rehearsal for a new year’s concert going on. Shall we?’

  She’s already got her hand on the glass and is pushing her way inside. The heavy door creaks as I pass through it and we come to a stop in the wide vestibule. I’m hit by the comforting array of smells; wood polish mingling with recently struck matches and candle wax, and there’s something sweet baking somewhere, and the roasted, savoury smell of coffee.

  An elderly man greets us and points towards the next set of doors. Neither of us know exactly what he said, but we get the gist that we’re to go inside and investigate where the music is coming from, which we gladly do.

  Nobody notices us as we sneak into the high-ceilinged chapel just as the music swells to a climax. We pull our hats off and grab two of the very few unoccupied chairs which are set out in rows, and we become part of the congregation.

  A bearded man in jeans and a baggy cream jumper with a golden woollen cross on the front is standing on a raised stage in front of the pulpit. He’s wearing a Madonna-style headset and microphone which is sending his calm, steady voice over the church’s speakers as he leads the rehearsal. I’m guessing he’s the priest – or he’s just really into statement knitwear. He twinkles his eyes at us to signal that we’re welcome and we settle in to listen to the singing.

  The elderly man who met us at the door shuffles in holding a violin and makes his way onto the stage, where he is joined by a little girl, who can only be about ten years old. The knitted vicar helps her arrange her sheet music on the rack above the piano keys. As she sits down to play, some unseen person dims the lights. The room darkens and a spotlight shines onto the stage. The fairy lights from the Christmas tree by the pulpit glow out in the half light.

  There is silence in the audience as the vicar says a few words to the child and she nods before spreading her fingers over the keys and beginning to play. The vicar takes a guitar from behind the piano and sits on a chair by the Christmas tree, waiting for his cue to join in.

  I close my eyes as the room fills with a beautiful melody. I hear the violin and guitar strings join in after a few moments as the introduction swells, and I’m aware suddenly of the sounds of people rising to their feet around us. My eyes flick open and I find I’m the only person still sitting; even Nari has sprung up and is looking around, a little alarmed that we’re expected to sing any moment now.

  The congregation opens its voice and they sing in festive accord. Whatever it is they’re singing, it’s beautiful. There’s nothing Nari and I can do but sway gently to the music and try to hum along – singing is difficult when you don’t speak the language. The young couple next to Nari notice we’re clueless and pass us one of the songbooks, but looking at the Finnish words on the page, we’re still just as lost.

  The sounds rise and fall and I look over the heads of the singing crowd at the huge windows at the back of the stage. There’s no stained glass in this church, instead there’s something far prettier; towering clear glass with a view beyond of the snowy churchyard with a cluster of Christmas trees resplendent in strands of shining white lights.

  I smile at Nari and think how, for the first time since we arrived, I can truly feel my Christmas spirits revived. Here amongst the strangers making music, I’m somehow at home and completely, utterly peaceful; something I haven’t felt for many months.

  The tall candles lining the walls flicker, and I find myself staring at their dancing light reflected in the windows, and I try to sing along without knowing the words. It doesn’t matter, I just want to sing.

  After three more songs, and quite a lot of sitting down and standing up again, an exuberant round of applause signals it’s the end of the rehearsal, and I feel myself waking as if I’d slept and dreamt the whole thing.

  Nari and I are gathering our scarves and gloves, ready to head out into the dark night, when the violin man stops us at the door and spreads his arms wide as if to contain us. He smiles and says, ‘Olkaa hyvä ja jääkää kahville.’

  Nari’s shaking her head, polite but confused, and reaching for her translation app, when I realise he’s directing us towards another room off to the side of the stage which everyone seems to be slowly filing into.

  ‘Coffee and food, please stay,’ he adds, in perfect English.

  And so we follow him, finding a long table set out with cups and Tupperware and tins full of all kinds of homemade baked treats. And that’s where we spend the rest of our evening, making conversation, sometimes aided by clever technology, with our new friends. Nari likes to at least try to speak the local languages, but I’m relieved the whole party speaks English clear as a bell; in fact, they all seem to be fluent, despite their frequent apologies for their (perfect) English. I tell them their language skills put me with my ability to say precisely zero words in Finnish (well, I do know sauna) to shame.

  I’m eating a gorgeous nutty cake with butter cream icing when I ask the woolly clergyman – who turns out to be sweetly gentle and exquisitely quietly spoken without his microphone and speaker system – about one of the songs I’d heard. It had sounded as though they were singing my name, Sylvie. ‘Did I imagine that?’

  He walks off, coming back a moment later with a leather-bound songbook, and he shows me some lyrics.

  ‘Sylvian joululaulu?’ I say, stumbling over the pronunciation and making everyone within earshot smile, humouring the dopey English woman.

  ‘It’s a Christmas song, very famous in Finland, very important.’

  ‘It was lovely, what is it about?’

  ‘Oh, this is not so lovely. A song about night-singing birds, trapped and then cruelly blinded and kept in cages, so their singing in the darkness will attract other birds, who are also then captured.’

  ‘Oh!’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ the vicar smiles. ‘Very Finnish.’

  ‘And it’s a Christmas song?’

  ‘Yes, a very old one. But it’s about loving Finland too, and the winter and longing to be at home, safe and comfortable.’

  ‘That’s beautiful,’ I say, as he presses the book into my free hand – the other is still clasping a plate piled with delicious cakes and cookies.

  ‘Our gift to you.’

  ‘Oh, I can’t take this, it belongs to the church.’

  ‘I insist. Return it on your next visit, if you like, some other winter.’

  And so, Nari and I leave the church late that night, only just in time to hop on the last bus to Frozen Falls resort, with my new songbook souvenir, our bellies full of festive baking, our heads buzzing with music and the happy chatter of the congregation. And that’s how it begins to come back to me, my love for Christmas. At last. I’d known, deep down, Cole and his heartbreaking hadn’t stripped it away completely.

  All the way back to our cabins I tell Nari
how much I adore this time of year and everything associated with it, and how I’m finally utterly convinced we made the right decision to come to beautiful, surprising, welcoming Finnish Lapland.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Hello from gorgeous Lapland.

  Our second day here has been a whirlwind of snowy adventure. There were husky dogs (adorable), elk stew (delicious), blood pancakes (yes, I said blood pancakes) and cured reindeer meat (tastes exactly as you’d expect it to: like something you’d buy for your poodle in a pet shop) sliced off in big hunks for me to chew by a new friend in a traditional lavvu tent.

  Tonight, my friend S and I dined early at the resort restaurant again. The atmosphere’s cosy and bustling, and its fine as far as food goes. There is a lot of meat, I mean loads, and some root veg and gorgeous bread. But it’s expensive to transport fresh produce up here, so we’re making do with the odd apple and preserved summer fruit (jam, pickles, chutney, frozen berry smoothies). I’m already becoming a bit of a stranger to greens this holiday, but the scarcity of fresh stuff makes it all the more special somehow. Imagine getting excited over a side of fresh broccoli, but that’s what happened!

  So, what about the overall experience so far? I’m realising that even if you get everything you came for (snow, elves, huskies, winter sports) the average tourist doesn’t really get to know Finnish Lapland and its people, culture or history. Luckily, we’ve found two guides steeped in the history of this place – our guides to something more ‘authentic’. Though, even without their help, I think we stumbled into a true local community space tonight, and we were welcomed with open hearts.

  If you can visit the little chapel near Saariselkä, you must. I sang every carol; nobody seemed to mind that I didn’t understand any of the words, and I couldn’t pronounce them either. It was perfect, unforgettable, and beautiful. And I got to do it with my best friend; a rare treat for me, the lone traveller.

  So, here’s something to chew on. Did you know that Finnish Lapland is in large part Sápmi – the ancestral lands of the Sámi (or Saami) people, sometimes described as the only indigenous people of Europe? Sápmi lands stretch right across the northern Scandinavian countries.

  There are thousands of people who identify as Sámi living in Finland and hundreds of thousands living all over the globe. Part of the history of the Sámi people is depressingly familiar: displacement, developments on traditional territories, and the suppression of traditions, languages and cultural practices. But here in Inari, and all across the Sápmi, there’s continuance too, and cultural investment, and celebration and a flourishing worldwide sense of Sámi belonging. All of this, according to my new friend, N.

  He’s going to tell me more tomorrow.

  I want to get to know the man, find out what it’s like living and working in Lapland and, if he’s happy to share, learn more about his family traditions. Until tomorrow, sleep tight, Nari Bell

  #BigCosyBed #GalaxyChocolate #NoAurora #Disappointing #LaplandNights #NewFriends #WhyITravel

  Chapter Fifteen

  Waking up on Christmas Eve in a snowbound cabin by a Lapland forest is, let me tell you, the most Christmassy thing I’m ever likely to experience, and a world away from last Christmas when I woke up next to Cole at the Love Shack, preparing for a tense day at Patricia’s. Ugh, I don’t even want to think about that now. Not when the world is still totally dark at nine a.m. and I am contentedly sitting up in bed – I’ve braved a night in the glass room and found I’m not afraid to sleep in there any more.

  I’m batting away intrusive memories of Cole and Christmases past and watching the snow falling from the black sky and wondering if I can be bothered clambering into my snowsuit to drag myself to breakfast at the hotel restaurant when Nari bangs on my cabin door. She’s in her pyjamas and snow boots with a furry blanket clasped around her.

  ‘Come and see what’s just arrived in my kitchen!’ she yells as soon as I open the door, and I watch as she runs off and up the steps of her cabin next to mine.

  Grabbing keys, pulling on snow boots and wrapping a white woollen throw around me, I chase after her, making deep footprints in the crunching snow.

  I find Nari unpacking a big picnic basket at the kitchen island, grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘What’s all this?’

  ‘Stephen’s PA emailed last night telling me to expect a surprise delivery today. Just look at all this stuff.’

  There are two beautiful hand carved wooden Lappish bowls and matching deep wooden spoons like ladles, a bag of almonds tied with a red ribbon, a tall glass bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice, a box of apple pastries dusted with snowy icing sugar, a thermos of espresso, a jar of runny cream, something that looks like fruity, nutty muesli and lots of other little boxes and packets, all beautifully wrapped and extremely tempting.

  ‘There’s a note,’ Nari says as she unfolds the piece of paper.

  A taste of the best of Lapland. Enjoy your breakfast, x

  That’s all the encouragement we need and within half an hour we’re full of sweet treats and enjoying the caffeine buzz. ‘Good old Stephen, what a thoughtful gift,’ I say, stretching out on the sofa in front of Nari’s blazing fireplace.

  I notice she’s made an effort and decorated her Christmas tree. I think of the bare spruce in my cabin next door and the basket beside it, still filled with pretty baubles. What with dog-sledding and dining out at the resort restaurant, then the toboggans and carolling, I just haven’t found the time, and I’ll be heading out again soon.

  Nari’s already getting absorbed in writing her blog and looks settled on the big armchair so I don’t feel too bad about abandoning her this morning.

  ‘You staying here all day?’ I ask.

  ‘Yup, until three, then I’m taking Niilo out for a night on the tiles – well, an afternoon on the gritted streets.’

  ‘Well, you guys have fun. Don’t cut your date short on my account, OK? I’ll be totally fine having dinner by myself in my cabin, and I might have an early night.’

  ‘Here’s hoping you do.’ Nari’s waggling her eyebrows and doing her leery grin again.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re suggesting. I’m only taking a look around the resort with Stellan this morning, nothing else. It’s you who’s going on the hot date.’

  She just laughs at this and shakes her head, which is annoying because, as much as I’d like to be preparing for a romantic date, the most I can expect from Stellan is a (hopefully) friendly and relaxed meetup this morning, just two old acquaintances spending a few hours together.

  Fifty minutes later, I’m waiting on the steps of my cabin, in the resort-issue black snowsuit and so many layers there’s no way the cold can get through today. I’ve managed to blow dry and straighten my hair into submission and – don’t read anything into this – I’ve borrowed Nari’s pretty white snood and red lipstick (the lipstick was her idea), and I’m feeling pretty glam actually, which is miraculous given the extremes of hot and cold, damp and dry here. But where is Stellan? It’s almost eleven and he was never, ever late, back in the day.

  I can see Nari through her cabin window, still bundled on the armchair looking cosy and typing enthusiastically. I know she’s more excited about spending time with Niilo than she’s letting on. How could she not be? He’s adorable. He has a magic quality all his own, something elemental, he makes you feel as though anything can happen when you’re with him. I’m hoping he pulls out all the stops and they have an ultra-romantic date. Meanwhile I’ll have caught up with Stellan and will be relaxing on my own in my cabin. I might try to Facetime Mum and Dad in New York, or I’ll take a long bath and read a magazine. It’ll be nice to have some quiet me-time. I’m not sure why I sigh as I look up at the dark sky.

  It hasn’t really gotten light today, everything is a gorgeous lowering blue, and the sky is obscured by heavy snow clouds and swirling flurries of flakes. I’ve seen snowstorms in England before, but they’re nothing like this dark brooding wildness. Even the b
ad weather in this place feels strange and wonderful. I cock my head and peer through the snowflakes. I’m pretty sure I can hear a jingling, tinkling sound carried on the wind. It puts me in mind of the bells on the airport elves’ hats, and for some reason, I find myself thinking about my schoolkids back home and how excited they’ll be today – even though a belief in Father Christmas is just something they humour their mothers’ wistfulness with.

  I smile at the thought of my four little nephews too. They span the ages of five to nine. The eldest, Rupert, will most likely for the last time, be hanging a stocking with his little brothers tonight, consumed with excitement and believing they’ll be magically filled with toys and treats by morning. They’ll all be searching the skies looking for a sign that Santa’s coming, and leaving out mince pies or milk and cookies, hoping against hope they’re on the nice list.

  What a shame the magic has to end, and all too soon. I have a feeling I’ll never see those little boys again, not that I saw them often even when I was with Cole, but I hope they received the gifts I sent, signed just from me this year.

  With all this in mind, standing under the arctic sky, I make a wish that all the children on the threshold of young adulthood have one last perfect Christmas before the magic fades, and they join us, the grownups, with all our jaded worldliness.

  There’s that jingling sound again. I know I’m definitely not imagining it this time. If Stellan were here I’d ask him what it is. As I’m struggling to part the thick layers between sleeve cuffs and glove to get a glimpse at my watch, and thinking that Stellan really is cutting it fine, I see it, and for a moment I can’t believe my eyes.

  The first thing I notice is the dancing light from two swinging lanterns, then I hear the bells growing louder, and the trotting, snorting sounds of the animals. There, dashing out of the dark forest towards me are four reindeer pulling behind them a long sled, and finally, all dressed in black, blond wisps of hair escaping from his fur-trimmed hood, is Stellan. Standing up in the sleigh, he is grasping the reins and making the silver bells sing out in the darkness. In the blink of an eye, he’s pulled the animals to a halt at the foot of my cabin steps, and he’s offering me a gloved hand.