A couple of years ago I took my daughter to Lapland to see the “real” Santa. Except, it wasn’t Lapland as advertised on the internet, but Jamtland. And Father Christmas turned out to be a skinny Cockney geezer in a red dressing gown lurking in a wooden hut sans elves, reindeer or gifts.

Another Christmas, another trip to see the real Santa (wink wink), this time with three-year-old son Max (novice Santa spotter) and Hanna, 6, Jamtland veteran.

Our packed flight of 250 screaming kids and parents landed at Kittila (north of the Arctic Circle) after three hours of karaoke Christmas carols and five-year-olds telling jokes of the what’s orange and comes down the chimney? Fanta Claus . . . variety. Egged on by effervescent trolley dollies in tinsel and reindeer hair bands.

“You are going to be the coldest you have ever been in your life,” muttered a mother into her son’s anorak. When the aircraft’s frozen door was eventually prised open, we stepped into a nostril-tingling minus 27C (-16F). It was 4pm and as dark as midnight.

We were driven for 90 minutes through pitch black roads illuminated by snow-covered pine forests to the tiny village of Luosto. No other traffic, just the odd wild reindeer scampering into the road. We finished up in our cosy Aurora Chalet Hotel drinking cloudberry juice, eating wild game and then curled up under a thick duvet to watch Emmerdale in Finnish. We left the curtains open — there was no need to draw them as the lightest it got was a grey light between 10am and 2.30pm.

On arrival I had discreetly dropped off wrapped presents as instructed by the tour operator Canterbury Travel — what the children had asked for in their Father Christmas letters — to the value of £20. A Superman costume for Max and a Boy Bratz for Hanna.

The next few days were something of a blur . . . On and off the bus we went in our moon suits — just our eyes peeping out. A trudge through the forest here. A glimpse into a log cabin at a couple of rosy-cheeked elves there. A reindeer ride in the dark, with reindeer skins tucked up to our chins. A spot of skidooing (motorbikes on skis) around a frozen lake and then being whisked at high speed through the woods by huskies. And off to another copper-coloured wood cabin full of elves and hundreds of boring (that’s what over-fives say anyhow) brightly painted, wooden toys.

“Where are the PlayStations?” a small boy asked an elf painstakingly carving a wooden rocking horse.

Next we were bundled into sledges pulled by skidoos into a forest with helmets over our balaclavas and blankets up to our chins. Up hills, over big bumps of snow and around a corner into a clearing with a big bonfire and a palatial blond-wood, Ikea-style house surrounded by candles, lanterns and kids with snowballs.

Our rep, Paola, beckons us into a side door. My children become quiet as doormice. We spot a roaring fire, a prehistoric typewriter, a winding staircase and we’re greeted by a roly-poly woman in a mop cap and a flouncy costume. It is Mrs Claus, who bosses the elves to lay the table correctly and shows us Santa’s patchwork quilt and slippers. Then she pulls back a bookcase (du-dum!!) and down we go into Santa’s room. The children are handed presents as they squeeze on to a bench taken up by his ample girth and before you can say PlayStation, we are out in the grey light again. Stunning. Yes, really. “That was the real Father Christmas . . . I think, Mum,” says Hanna, serious as can be.

On the bus back to the airport we were asked to fill in a questionnaire along the lines of: “How would you rate the effort of the elves? Excellent. Good. Average. Poor.”

We ticked all the excellent boxes. But the best bits of the trip were the sledge rides through the forests dotted with lanterns, the husky dog rides through Narnia scenery, the wild reindeer, the snug sauna where the three of us squashed in after coming in from the cold and the friends we made. That will leave the biggest impression on us. For ever.

Need to know

Jeannette Hyde and children travelled with Canterbury Travel (01923 822388, www.santa-holidays.com). The four-day Magical Interlude package (December 7-10) costs £1,035pp (adults) and £835pp (children aged 2 to 13 years inclusive) based on four sharing a room at the Aurora Chalet Hotel. The cost includes flights from Gatwick or Stansted, transfers, three nights’ full board and snowsuit hire.

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