Christmas News

More and more families are taking off to visit Santa Claus in Lapland. According to the Finnish Tourism Board, in the 2006-2007 winter season 200,000 British holidaymakers entered Finland. This is almost a quarter more than in the previous winter season. Over 80% of Brits entering Finland went to Lapland, most of them during the Christmas holiday season.

Lapland covers the northern parts of Norway, Sweden, Finland and some of Russia. Santa’s home is located on the Arctic Circle in Finland, where people can visit him any time of the year, December being the busiest time. There is an everlasting debate as to where Santa Claus comes from, but the Main Santa Claus Post Office in Finland’s Korvatunturi receives by far the most letters from children around the world.

Nobody really knows the real address of Santa Clause. Some people say that he lives in northern Canada and according to some he lives in the North Pole. Some other guesses place the residence of Santa in Dalecarlia in Sweden, in Korvatunturi in Finnish Lapland and in Greenland.

For the inhabitants of a small town nestled on Lake Erie in the northeastern United States, Xmas has come unexpectedly early in the form of a 100-million-dollar gift from an anonymous donor!

According to Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and AFP a benefactor identified only as “anonymous friend” made the donation to a group of charitable and non-profit causes in the town of Erie, Pennsylvania. Erie is the state’s fourth-largest city with a population of 104,000. The town could use the money. About 19 per cent of the town’s population are classified as poor — twice the US average. Median household income is $31,196 against $48,451 nationally, and in 2006, it had an estimated 400 homeless people.

Town of Eire

The donor reportedly put no restrictions on how the money should be spent, but the town’s community foundation had decided to give between one and two million dollars to a host of local good causes. The head of the town’s community foundation, Mike Batchelor, told the Tribune-Review he was sworn to secrecy over the donor’s identity, refusing to say even whether the anonymous benefactor was still alive.

But according to the report, local beneficiaries including a food bank for the homeless, a women’s center and a group caring for the blind are more than happy to respect the donor’s wish to remain anonymous.

Biggest givers

The world’s top 5 most generous philanthropists (BusinessWeek’s 2006 ranking)

1 Warren Buffet CEO Berkshire Hathaway $40.7bn estimated lifetime giving to health, education, humanitarian causes
2 Bill and Melinda Gates Microsoft co-founders $28bn to health and development
3 George Soros Investor, $5.9bn to “Open and democratic societies”
4 Gordon and Betty Moore Intel co-founders $7.4bn to Environment, science
5 Herbert and Marion Sandler Golden West financial company co-founders $1.4bn to stem cell research, education