Lapland Invitation from Santa

A Lapland invitation is the moment the trip stops being a secret. It is short, formal and official-looking on purpose — the child’s name is written on it, a date has been set, and someone at the North Pole has clearly gone to some trouble. Everything warmer comes afterwards.

What’s on the invitation

An invitation is not a letter and should not read like one. Its whole job is to make the announcement feel arranged. Every design carries the same details:

• Your child’s name, set large and centred where a certificate would put it. There is a second name field too, so brothers and sisters can share one invitation.
• Departing from — your home town or the airport you are flying from, which is the small detail that makes children believe the arrangements are real.
• The date of the journey, written out in full: Saturday 12 December, not 12/12.
• Duration of stay, if you want it — three nights, a week, however long you have booked.
• A signature from Father Christmas, Santa or the elves, above a wax seal or a North Pole postmark depending on the design.

The four designs deliberately do not look alike: a candy-cane border with a sleigh and four reindeer across the head; an aged parchment scroll with a deep red wax seal pressed into the corner; a snow globe holding a North Pole village under glass; and an air mail envelope franked with a Santa stamp. Pick whichever suits the child — the youngest usually choose the snow globe.

An invitation from Father Christmas, from Santa, or from an elf

Families do not all use the same name, and an invitation signed with the wrong one lands slightly flat. In most British households it is Father Christmas, and that is what the invitation says by default. If your children say Santa, choose Santa. And if there is already an elf living on a shelf in your house, the invitation can come from the elves of the North Pole instead — which works nicely if the elf is the one delivering it.

The wording changes to match, so the sign-off and the “from” line stay consistent with whoever it is meant to be from.

Two things worth saying plainly. Adding a second child is free here, where several of the posted alternatives charge per child. And the invitation is addressed to the children rather than to a particular shape of household — one parent, two mums, two dads, grandparents or anyone else doing the booking will find nothing on it that needs explaining away.

Print it tonight, or wait six working days

Most Lapland invitations for sale are posted to you. They cost between £7 and £14 and take about a week to arrive. They are genuinely lovely things — and if you have the time, a posted invitation does something a printed one cannot.

But a great many people decide to do the reveal at the last minute, and the honest comparison looks like this:

So if your reveal is weeks away and you want an heirloom, order a posted one. If it is this weekend — or you have only just booked, or the date has moved — print this one. Every design is drawn on pale paper precisely so a home printer can cope without draining a cartridge. Plain paper is fine. A sheet of card, or a heavier cream stock, is better.

How to give a Lapland invitation

Nobody really explains this part, so here is what works.

Do not hand it over. Let it arrive. Slide it under the front door and knock, so they find it on the mat. Leave it propped against the kettle for the morning. Tuck it inside a book at bedtime and let them turn the page onto it.

Put it in an envelope, and make the envelope plain — no shop logo, nothing that gives it away before it is opened. A blob of sealing wax on the back takes a minute and is the single thing children remember afterwards. Some families put the envelope in the freezer for an hour first, so it arrives properly cold, as though it has come a very long way through the snow.

Then let them open it themselves and read it aloud. Have a camera ready but do not make a production of it — the moment is theirs, not the recording’s. Two to four weeks before you travel suits most children: long enough for the anticipation to become part of the holiday, short enough that the waiting does not turn into torture. For the very youngest, a week is kinder.

After the invitation

The invitation is the announcement. What follows it is the keepsake.

The Lapland reveal letter is the longer, warmer message from Santa — the one that talks to your child by name about what they have been up to this year, rather than simply summoning them. It is the natural next step, and it is free to make in the same way. The free Lapland boarding pass gives them something to hold at the airport with their name and the flight on it, and it pairs neatly with the “departing from” line on this invitation.

Print the invitation, keep the letter for the day after, and let the boarding pass come out on the way to the airport. Spread over a few weeks, three small pieces of paper do more than one big one.