Santa Claus is not commuting through the tunnel this is merely the name of the Eurostar depot adjacent to Wormwood Scrubs

Santa Claus is not commuting through the tunnel; this is merely the name of the Eurostar depot adjacent to Wormwood Scrubs. “North Pole” is a rather more catchy address than Her Majesty’s Prison, certainly not the sort of place Santa would stay.Father Christmas does have a postal address in Britain, and even a postcode of his own, but a red-nosed helper stresses that the last posting-date for this year has already passed – so no dispatches, please, to Santa, Reindeerland, SAN TA1. (Though it’s never too early for 1998 – the first of this year’s requests arrived in June.)The physical manifestation of Reindeerland turns out to be a grotto in the corner of the Royal Mail’s Returned Letter Centre in Belfast. As you prepare to open up your chimney to its annual visitor and leave out mince pies and whisky (not forgetting a carrot for the reindeer), Simon Calder hunts for the home of Father Christmas

Santa has more fixed abodes than the Royal Family. Any one-reindeer town, it seems, boasts a residence – including a place in west London, which is where the St Nicholas trail starts.
Travellers on some Eurostar trains to Paris and Brussels may be surprised to see their carriages bearing the motif “North Pole”. Finally, the Canadian airline First Air operates links from Iqaluit in northern Canada to Kangerlussuaq and Nuuk.Arctic Experience (01737 218800) is one of the few companies to offer package holidays in Greenland.More information: The Danish Tourist Board, 55 Sloane Street, London SW1X 9SY (0171-259 5959) may be able to help with basic inquiries. Otherwise, contact Greenland Tourism in Copenhagen: 00 45 33 13 69 75.Iceland, Greenland and the Faroe Islands (Lonely Planet, pounds 11.99) has a chunky chapter on the country.Next page: Claus wars – where does Santa really live?.

And anyway, I remembered just in time that on the previous day I had been to a barbecue. And I think we might have eaten Rudolph.ON TRACK FOR GreenlandArrivals: There are several ways to reach Greenland, none of them cheap or easy.Cathy Packe flew on the Scandinavian airline SAS (0345 010789) from Heathrow via Copenhagen to Narsarsuaq, using frequent flyer points. If you do not use frequent flyer points to get there, then the fare is about pounds 700 – and anyway, the last flight of the winter operated last Wednesday.A three-times-a-week alternative is on Icelandair and Air Iceland (booked through 0345 581111) from Heathrow or Glasgow via Reykjavik to Kulusuk. As I had now exhausted my inquiries, I adjourned to the cafe upstairs – the Cafe Rudolph – for a cup of tea. I could hardly believe my eyes when the first person I saw was a man with a long white beard. He was deep in conversation, so I would have been too embarrassed to interrupt him.

It is now quite common to ask for famine in Africa to be stopped, for example, or for parents not to get divorced. And sometimes, apparently, Father Christmas decides to write to the parents and pass on what their child has said.But despite the fact that a lot of people in the sorting office were very busy, I never saw the person I was looking for Someone thought he was around, but might be having a break. It was reassuring to see a globe in one corner, so anyone hoping for a delivery to an out-of-the-way place can be sure that every effort is being made to find it.The sorters in the office told me that they receive up to 25,000 letters each year from all over the world. They try to answer as many as they can, and will probably reply to three-quarters; but if they can’t read the handwriting, they can’t write back. These days many of the letters don’t just ask for a present for the writer. I noticed one sack which was already full, with presents spilling out of the top.