The Santa visit 2021

We had a very special Christmas outing this month to visit the real Santa Claus in Tochigi. I've always called it Santastic Tochigi as there are so many places to visit Santa in the prefecture. Furthermore, there are lots of places with a Santa theme and / or Santa statues and paraphernalia. Moreover, several places really go all out for Christmas. I love to visit Tochigi in December, because it has a much stronger festive feel than other prefectures in the Kanto plain. 

In 2020, Santa Claus was unable to visit Japan due to the Coronavirus. Thankfully, he was able to come back this year. However, as the pandemic is ongoing, he could / can only go to a few places this year. We caught him at Santa Hills in Tochigi. But he is also visiting two other locations in Tochigi in the next few days, including the amazing Finland No Mori and the equally excellent Moose Family Camp Resort. 

In previous years at Santa Hills, Santa Claus came to our cabin to visit the kids. But this year, due to the pandemic, Santa Claus was in a teepee near the center house. As it was quite dark, despite the beautiful illumination around, it was hard to get a good photo. I purposefully used one of the worst photos for this post as I don't post pictures of my kids publicly online. But to be honest, even the "best" isn't much better than this! It doesn't matter much though, the kids really enjoyed meeting Santa Claus and were delighted with the little present he gave them.  

If you haven't visited Santa Claus yet this year, but would like to, don't worry its not too late. Santa Claus is surprisingly doing most of his visits on Christmas eve and Christmas day this year. Here are ten places you can visit him over the coming days in the Greater Tokyo area. A very merry Christmas to you and yours!