The first official visit of the real Santa Claus to City of London - Honka provided Santa's log cabin for the Lord Mayor's Show parade

Finland and the Finnish Santa Claus will be in the limelight next Saturday, November 11 in the historical show of the Lord Mayor of the City of, which will include a parade and fireworks. This will be Santa’s first official visit to the City, and he will be one of the stars of the procession.

Santa Claus will travel through City in a spectacular 15metre long float, which displays a Finnish winter scene with reindeer, snow and real trees. The designers, Markus Friskberg and Ville Tervonen used mainly natural materials, including a wooden log cabin manufactured by Honka, the official log house supplier of Santa Claus. Honka has earned this title as a member of the Finnish Santa Claus Foundation which promotes Finland as the real Christmas land and the genuine home of Santa Claus.

Mr John Stuttard is 679th Lord Mayor of the City of London. He has previously consulted companies in a broad range of commercial sectors, including many Finnish enterprises, on London Stock Exchange listings, acquisitions etc. He also used to be Chairman of the Finnish-British Chamber of Commerce and therefore welcomed Santa Claus for an official visit to London. The 800-year-old traditional parade will have over half a million spectators and millions more who view the show on TV in England and round the world.

Both Honka and Santa Claus have Finnish origins. In Santa’s homeland, the Lapp people have lived for centuries in healthy houses made of natural wood. During its nearly 50-year history, Honka has manufactured more than 1000 log houses only for Lapland. Honka is the world leader in log house production with nearly 70 000 houses build to more than 40 countries.

Mr Esko Teerikorpi, Honka’s president and CEO, states:
“We are happy that Santa Claus‘s first official visit to the City of London will be witnessed by so many spectators. As a manufacturer of genuine log houses we are very proud to have the one and only original Santa Claus in Finland”.

Santa’s cottage will be auctioned in London later on, and the proceeds will be donated to the Educational Trust to promote Finnish students in the UK.

For further information: Mr EskoTeerikorpi, President and CEO of Honkarakenne Oyj, tel. + 358 20 575 7816, esko.teerikorpi@honka.com

Press relations: Pirjo Kuisma, communicator, tel. +358 40 554 3587, pirjo.kuisma@figuuri.fi

In the late 1950s five Saarelainen brothers started to build log homes in the town of Lieksa, in Eastern Finland. Soon the inventive quintet found themselves in creating the one of the first industrial log house production plant. The millennium-old technology of wooden log construction had been reverted.

Using the 20th century know-how, they succeeded in adjusting the traditional building style to modern living needs. Within less than 30 years, Honka expanded its position with respect to other rivals on the market to become national market leader in the log house segment – convincing proof for the quality of Honka genuine wooden homes.

In time the domestic markets turned into international sales. In the beginning of 1970s Honka began to export log houses to Japan. In order to support the expansion financially, Honka listed in Helsinki stock market in 1983. The sales grew and exceeded the mile stone of 100 million Finnish Marks (16,800,000 Euro) in 1986. In the end of the decade the annual sales total went over 200 million Marks.

In 1990s Honka really invested in export and founded subsidiaries in Japan, Germany, France and the USA. Also, Honka introduced new technologies and logs types.

In the 21st century, Honka has become a valuable brand gaining an increasing number of enthusiastic fans in home building. With more than 70,000 log houses built world-wide, Honka is the largest genuine wooden house producer in the world.

This release was published on openPR.