Articles on Experiences 3 – Christmas Experiences

Edited by Mika Kylänen

Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry (LCEEI) The Experience Institute project Cover photo by Timo Lindholm, Joulupankki 2004 Layout by Anu Kulmala & Leena Janhila 2nd edition ISBN 978-952-5585-42-5 University of Lapland Press Rovaniemi 2007

The discussion on Experience Economy or Industry has come to stay. Especially the field of economic science has shown great interest towards experience business and products during the last ten years. More and more different fields of sciences offer their viewpoints for understanding the processes of this great turn. Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry (LCEEI) and The Experience Institute project wish to widen and deepen the discourse by highlighting experiences not only from the economical, market-oriented and structural side but cultural, social and emotional side as well. This collection also aims to understand a certain phenomenon, namely Christmas, through the eyes of experiential elements, symbolism and experience production. Also a comprehensive article for understanding the logic of experience economy is included into the collection. The 3rd collection on experience articles focuses on Christmas. The book, edited by Mika Kylänen, introduces you six articles discussing Christmas from different point-of-views from psychological meaning to Santa Claus Tourism and again to myth, magic and reality. The collection also includes an article discussing experience economy and creation of meaningful experiences as a whole. The Articles on Experiences is a true testimony about a new, accumulative international forum for versatile scientific debate on experiences. The collection has had a good reception quite quickly. Let’s hope the tradition continues. The editor recommends the book to several audiences. Researchers, teachers and students as well as entrepreneurs and developers will find interesting viewpoints for their own work. Christmas Experience Articles helps you to understand the nature of Christmas both culturally, psychologically and economically! The Collection also guides you in forming a solid, multifaceted view on meaningful experiences as a whole.

Content Introduction Mika Kylänen .............................................................................................. 6

Santa Claus – A Figure of Fairytale and Reality Anna-Riikka Lavia ..................................................................................... 12

Santa Claus Tourism in Lapland Michael Pretes .......................................................................................... 22

Power of Myth, Magic and Miniature – Christmas and Lapland in Picture Books Sisko Ylimartimo ....................................................................................... 32

Their Peculiar Christmas Tree – Experiences of Beauty in Wintry Moominvalley Sisko Ylimartimo ....................................................................................... 44

Christmas as Symbolic Projection of Human Psyche: Jungian View on Psychological Meaning of Christmas Time Juha Perttula ............................................................................................. 56

A New Perspective on the Experience Economy Meaningful Experiences Albert Boswijk, Thomas Thijssen, Ed Peelen ............................................ 76

Enlightening Christmas Experience – Reflections on the Experience Pyramid Mika Kylänen ........................................................................................... 100

Introduction Mika Kylänen, the editor

The Third in a Row The discussion on Experience Economy or Industry has come to stay. Especially the field of economic science has shown great interest towards experience business and products during the last ten years. More and more different fields of sciences offer their viewpoints for understanding the processes of this great turn. Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry (LCEEI) and The Experience Institute project wish to widen and deepen the discourse by highlighting experiences not only from the economical, market-oriented and structural side but cultural, social and emotional side too. The collection also aims to understand a certain phenomenon, namely Christmas, through the eyes of experiential elements and experience production. Also a comprehensive article for understanding the logic of experience economy is included into the collection. What makes Christmas? What is the nature of Christmas experience? What appeals when talking about Christmas? How the myths of Christmas time come true? The 3rd collection on experience articles focuses on Christmas. The book, edited by Mika Kylänen, introduces you six articles discussing Christmas from different point-of-views from psychological meaning to Santa Claus Tourism and again

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to myth, magic and reality. The collection also includes an article discussing experience economy and creation of meaningful experiences as a whole. Articles on Experiences 3 continues the series of previously published Articles on Experiences and Articles on Experiences 2. The book is meant to widen and deepen the scientific thinking and discussion regarding experience production, experience economy or industry and experiencing. Christmas has enlightened our dark time of the year way before the turn of the experience industry. However, nowadays when the experientialism and experience products have become more popular it is interesting to analyze the nature of Christmas and the symbolism of the myths and magic of Christmas time. The collection includes seven articles from different themes. Six of them have a common denominator, namely Christmas experience. One of the articles discusses the creation of meaningful experience from both social/cultural and economical view. The last article gathers the different viewpoints together. There are eight writers from different parts of the world, three from the Netherlands, one from the United States and three from Finland. The collection is wri�en completely in English for a�aining as many readers as possible. The book is aimed at different audiences: researchers, teachers and students as well as entrepreneurs and developers. Christmas Experiences collection helps you to understand the nature of Christmas and to find new aspects for realizing the multiple forms the Christmas has in our minds. It also guides you in forming a solid, multifaceted view on meaningful experiences as a whole. The articles will offer you viewpoints from psychological meaning to symbolism, from Santa Claus tourism to tradition and from the nature of experiences to a new perspective on the experience economy.

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All articles are collected on the basis of invitations and contributions. They have been collected in autumn 2005 – winter 2006, and the articles submi�ed deal with experiential themes like nature, stories, culture, arts and business. As a whole, the collection emphasizes the logic of experience economy and deepens the understanding of Christmas as a phenomenon and as a branch of business. The writers represent different fields of science from arts to psychology, from geography to ethnology and from management to economics. All articles are copyrighted (©). References are asked to be made as following: Author 2006: The name of the article. In Kylänen, Mika (ed.): Articles on Experiences 3. Christmas Experiences. Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry. Rovaniemi, pp. Please let me introduce you our writers and tell you a li�le about the following articles. Anna-Riikka Lavia is an ethnologist, M.A.. She is a doctoral student at the University of Turku. Lavia is oriented in tradition and stories, and her dissertation discusses productization of culture and tradition. She has among other things collected and wri�en Christmas-oriented stories to website, www.santaclaus.fi. Lavia’s article, Santa Claus – a Figure of Fairytale and Reality, focuses on Santa Claus’ position in our western culture. Lavia guides the reader with interesting discussions on auhtenticism, value, coca-colaization and interpretations. Michael Pretes is Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at Central Missouri State University in Warrensburg, Missouri, USA. He was formerly Research Associate at the Arctic Centre of the University of Lapland in Rovaniemi, Finland. He has also lived and worked in many other places, including Canada, Australia, California, and

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Hawaii. In his article, Pretes writes about Santa Claus tourism in Lapland, Finland. He describes the origins of Santa Claus tourism in Lapland and comments on some reasons for its success as well as on the possible threats this conceals. Sisko Ylimartimo is Doctor of Philosophy and Doctor of Arts. She works as Senior lecturer of art history at the University of Lapland, Rovaniemi, Finland, and is also docent of children’s literature at the University of Oulu. She has written books and articles about picture book illustration, fairy tales, arts and cra�s and sacral art. Christmas with its mystical and magic figures, elves and brownies, are a natural part of her studies, work and research. Research of illustration of fairy tales and children’s picture books is her speciality. Sisko Ylimartimo has wri�en two articles to the AoE3. In the first, Power of Myth, Magic and Miniature, she opens cultural constructions of Christmas by interpreting three different realities presented by three picture books. The second, Their Peculiar Christmas Tree, discusses the theme of experiencing Christmas. Ylimartimo gives profound as well as hilarious examples on the Christmas time in the Moominvalley - the world created by Tove Jansson. The two articles show that Christmas includes significant symbolic and emotional features. Juha Per�ula is Professor of Psychology at the University of Lapland, Finland. He earned his Ph.D. at the University of Jyväskylä, Finland, in 1998. The dissertation was titled “The Experienced Life-Fabrics of Young Men”. He has a long-standing concern with qualitative methods for studying human experience, especially from phenomenological, hermeneutic and existential perspectives. His main publications include the following: The author of “Studying Human Experience in Psychology: Introduction to Phenomenological Psychology” [in Finnish] (SUFI, 1995), the author of “Am I happy? Psychological study about Happiness of Finnish Adults” [in Finnish] (PS-kustannus, 2001), the first editor

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and one author of “Studying Experience. Meaning, Interpretation, Understanding” [in Finnish] (Dialogia, 2005). One of his research interest is the relation between experientialindividual and social-cultural human worlds. His article in this publication about the psychological meaning of Christmas illustrates this interest. Albert Boswijk, Thomas Thijssen and Ed Peelen have wri�en a joint article to the collection on new perspectives concerning the experience economy. The article describes the foundations of meaningful experiences, the particular design principles that apply to them and how you can bring the whole concept into actual practice. Albert Boswijk is the Managing Director of European Centre for the Experience Economy in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Albert Boswijk is one of the European forerunners in experience economy. He also works as a business consultant. Boswijk’s special interest is in generations of experience economy and experience business practices. Thomas Thijssen, advisor, researcher and author, runs the Via Nova Academy. Via Nova Academy is a new meeting place for people that want to build as a personal entrepreneur on a full engagement society in the Netherlands. European Director of Research in European Centre Thijssen has several publications on innovation, demand driven design and education and other topics concerning entrepreneurship. Ed Peelen is Professor of Direct Marketing at the Centre of Supply Chain Management and Executive Management Development Centre at the Nyenrode Business University, the Netherlands. He is specialized in direct marketing, customer relationship management, account management and marketing in general. He has written fi�een books and numerous articles in both managerial and academic journals. Well, my name is Mika Kylänen, M.Sc.Admin. I work for Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry, Rovaniemi, Finland. I have familiarized myself widely with

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the discussion about experience production. As my speciality, I consider especially product development and tourism business in the light of experiences. Also an aggregative viewpoint on the regional development and innovation conditions is close to me. I am a doctoral student at the University of Lapland, in a project Tourism as Work funded by the Academy of Finland. My doctoral dissertation discusses the co-work in tourism, especially the joint processes between entrepreneurs. My aim in the article is to analyze the experientialism of Christmas by using the Experience Pyramid model. I will also comment on different viewpoints and articles of the collection. I hope the collection will give you further understanding about the nature and interpretations of meaningful experiences and promote a multifaceted debate about the future and practicalities of experience industry, and wider, the fusion of culture and economy!

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Santa Claus – A Figure of Fairytale and Reality Anna-Riikka Lavia © Doctoral student Ethnology, Turku University ankala@utu.fi

In this article I am considering how Santa Claus has become the figure we know. I will also discuss Santa Claus` position in our culture during the decades. Santa Claus is known in different variations around the world. In Sweden Santa Claus is known as “Jultomten” and Norwegian have their own santa-figure called “Julnissen”. Of course there is a santa claus living in Greenland as well. In Finnish Lapland Santa Claus has become figurehead of tourism and Christmas travelling. Starting from 1984 the Finnish Tourist Board began to make Santa Claus a tourism industry. He was made a chief spokesman of Lapland province and an essential element of this strategy was Finland as the real home of Santa Claus (Pretes 1995, 2, 9). In Finland it is known that Santa Claus lives near the Russian border, at Korvatunturi (The Ear Fell) that can be seen on the official maps. The mountain has been named a�er its ear shaped tops. It is thought that with those ears

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Santa Claus can listen to the children all over the world. Santa’s home and workshop at Korvatunturi Mountain are situated in the border zone where his secrets are safe. This gives space for one’s own imagination. It is known that visiting there demands special arrangements and the permission from the border authorities. The difficulty to visit Korvatunturi Mountain is why Santa has opened an office at Arctic Circle near Rovaniemi town, where he can be seen every day of the year. How is that possible when he is living in quite another place? The Managing Director of Santa Claus office is not quite sure how Santa manages to do that. He assumes that Santa - who is not tied by space or time - could travel those couple of hundred kilometres between his office at Arctic Circle and his home at Korvatunturi Mountain in no time by using secret tunnels under the ground. (An interview with Jarmo Kariniemi, 17th September 2003.) “Santa Claus lives with his helpers, the elves, at Korvatunturi. However, a long time ago he decided to meet and be with people …Consequently, a�er many surveys, with the help of his good friends, he decided to build his own village close to the town of Rovaniemi, at the point where the highway north crosses the magical Arctic Circle.” (h�p://www. santagreeting.net) Santa Claus was localised at Korvatunturi Mountain on 1920’s when radio presenter Uncle Markus revealed Santa’s address on a live broadcast. Even before that there had been rumours that Santa’s home is at Korvatunturi Mountain but there is no knowledge about the origin of this information. However, Korvatunturi Mountain as Santa’s home has become a solid part of the Finnish Christmas mythology. The idea of the one and only genuine Santa Claus of Finnish Lapland has been widely marketed around the world. The sta-

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tus of snowy and wintry Finnish Lapland as Santa’s home is supported and strengthened by the American belief that Santa Claus lives on the North Pole. (Karjalainen 1994, 218.) Santa’s li�le helpers, the elves are remains from Finnish beliefs in guardian spirits. This belief is even older than the permanent se�lement and it is related to the nature worshipping. Later, farmhouses, barns and other buildings have had their own guardian spirits, grey elves whose function was to protect and bring good luck. At the beginning the guardian spirit was the first dead inhabitant of the house. Later the western belief in elves replaced the forefathers as guardian spirits. (Haavio 1942, 60-64, Suominen & Hakala 2004, 54) Already at the time of guardian spirits they have been present on Christmas time. It has been a common habit to offer the spirits a nightly Christmas feast. (Haavio 1938, 26; 1942, 424-434.) Social control has also been a function of the guardian spirits or elves. For instance, the sauna has been a place where people were supposed to act respectfully in order to please the spirit. The elves that are the later expression of the guardian spirits have converted to Christmas elves and Santa’s li�le helpers a�er the 1880’s. This change is related to Central European Christmas habits. In fact, it is “Jultomten”, The Christmas Elf, who brings Christmas presents in Sweden even today. (Suominen & Hakala 2004, 58-60.) It is an old Finnish tradition that a noisy group of people, masked as goats and other creatures, go around from house to house to scare and amuse villagers on Christmas time (Karjalainen 1994, 217; Sarmela 1994, 100). In Finnish Santa Claus is literally called Christmas goat, “Joulupukki”, and this old, horn-headed Christmas figure is the one to blame. Before he appeared as red-jacketed Santa he visited bourgeois families in his grey fur and with a wooden stick already from the 1800’s. (Karjalainen 1994, 217.)

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This Santa Claus is of Central European origin and its model is considered to be Saint Nicholas who still is known as a deliverer of Christmas presents in some parts of Europe (Vilkuna 1973, 321-322; Suominen & Hakala 2004, 62). Generally, many Finnish Christmas habits are of West European origin; Christmas tree is from Germany as well as Christmas songs, later some Anglo-Saxon songs were adopted, too. This can be seen as a desire of the nation to a�ach to the western culture – that is not quite self-evident from the geographical point of view. (Jaakkola 1977, 303-304.) On the other hand it means that the contacts with the West have been tight. Today this kind of tendency seems to affect our culture even stronger. “Coca-Colaization” carries over onto cultural meaning and erodes the territorial integrity of cultures (Hughes 1995, 783). Kind and he�y Santa Claus figure with his reindeer and sledge was introduced to the general public by the weekly Harper’s Illustrated in 1862. It published Santa Claus figures drawn by German-born Thomas Nast. It is assumed that he got inspiration from the poem T’was the night before Christmas that has Dutch origin. He also used the name ”Santa Claus” for the first time. (Pretes 1995, 9; Salokorpi 1996, 73-74.) That kind of chubby, smiling Santa Claus figure become famous world wide a�er 1931 when Haddon Hubert Sundblom, an illustrator with Finnish ancestry, draw his first red-jacketed Santa Claus on a Coca Cola commercial (Salokorpi 1996, 73-78). As a whole, the red colour has become a symbol of Christmas a�er the progress in using colours in print (Jaakkola 1977, 281). On the other hand, the Finnish elf, the guardian spirit, has been long known from his red cap (Haavio 1942, 136-137). Also the Finnish Santa Claus has been standardised, to be�er fit globally known happy and smiling fairytale figure with more selling power. Would it still be possible to understand Finnish Santa Claus as a tradition? An innovation has

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to last quite a long time before it becomes tradition (Jaakkola 1977, 291). On the other hand it is not only time that makes something authentic. In tourism it is impossible to tell when product or cultural feature crosses the line and can be seen as an authentic and traditional part of a local culture (Saarinen 1999, 89). “Lapland’s tourism strategy has a�empted to use Santa Claus as something that makes Lapland unique – this in addition to the original a�ractions in Lapland, the landscape and local culture. Although Lapland is in many ways similar to other parts of the sub-Arctic, it is more accessible and is perhaps be�er known, especially to Europeans.” (Pretes 1995, 4) In this statement we can hear echoes of the usual way of thinking that the new can not be as precious and authentic as the old. The horn-headed goat was not any more suitable for the modernised and urbanised society and that phenomenon had to change. For my opinion it is time to admit that Santa Claus as we know him today has become a genuine part of Finnish Christmas although he is also a commercial product and the main tourist a�raction of Rovaniemi. Santa Claus has become a product and besides that a figurehead of commercial Christmas. Maybe he has achieved the strong position just because the deliverer of presents helps market forces and promotes the message of commercial Christmas. Researcher Jaakkola has already in the 1970’s spoken about Christmas present institution (Jaakkola 1977, 288). Nowadays Santa Claus is a pillar of this institution. The institution feels very modern, but giving presents at Christmas and New Year time is no novelty. The habit was known among the higher social classes as early as 1500’s (Karjalainen et al. 1989, 245).

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It may be hard to think something as commercial as today’s Santa Claus to be something true and authentic. However, the issue of authenticity is not black and white. The change of local cultures and identities unceasingly produces genuineness and falsehood alike. In tourism an authentic and genuine culture product o�en is replaced by new constructions of authenticity (Saarinen 1999, 89). In fact, authenticity in tourism can be seen as a presentation of culture to tourists (Hughes 1995, 781). Thus it is just natural that the Finnish horn-headed Christmas goat has been replaced by a new ‘goat’, red-coated, benevolent Santa, who sells well in modern homes and tourism markets. A new, smoother and more bountiful fairytale of Santa Claus was born. This Christmas fairytale is served to tourists in Rovaniemi, in Santa Claus village. As Michael Pretes (1995) has wri�en The Santa Claus (the person) and his Village in Rovaniemi serve as markers for the intangible sights of “Christmas” and “Santa Claus”. These markers are visual or spectacular representations of a sight which is abstract. The Santa Claus Village itself is yet another example of a sightmarker relationship. The tourist becomes involved with the marker because the sight itself is invisible and abstract. The relationship might be diagrammed as (Pretes 1995, 12): Marker (Signifier) Santa Claus (person) Santa Claus Village Arctic Circle sign

Sight (Signified) “Santa Claus” (legend) “Christmas” Arctic Circle

The authenticity of the Santa Claus Village lies in its representational connection to the idea of Christmas and Santa Claus. The consuming of Santa Claus and Santa Claus village as markers of the spirit of Christmas conjures up memo-

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ries of childhood. In fact, the nostalgia for childhood can be seen as the main a�raction of the Santa Claus village. (Pretes 1995, 12-13) There is a Christmas play, drama, also going on in private homes. Jaakkola describes Christmas as a fairytale play. The scene of action, home, is transformed into a fairytale stage using theatre-like properties. The fairytale figures like Santa Claus and elves have put Christmas on and the storylines of the acts have fairytale elements. (Jaakkola 1977, 311.) This kind of act is also Santa’s arrival ritual; waiting, knocking in the hall, the culmination and climax when Santa Claus at last enters the room amid the ones celebrating Christmas. Following strictly the rituals is important from the point of view of perfect Christmas atmosphere. The fairytale play is amusing, moral, it creates identities and emphasises the values of the society. In our modern society consumption is one of these values. First of all, the Christmas fairytale is a way to break out from reality. (Jaakkola 1977, 313.) As far as Santa Claus is considered this play is completed by speaking about him as if he were a real person. For instance, you can hear different kind of realistic explanations for his mysterious sides: “Santa Claus has wisely decided to live on the border zone where people can’t arrive without permission” (Salokorpi 1996, 42). We could consider Santa Claus as the superstar of the Christmas play. When we in half believe in him we can reach the true feeling of fairytale Christmas. Already in the 1970’s, according to surveys, the adults felt that Christmas had been badly commercialised. The children, however, felt Christmas to be as exciting and exhilarating as their parents had felt it in their “not so commercial” childhood (Jaakkola 1977, 312). So, Coca Cola Santa Claus has not diminished the charm of Christmas in children’s minds. Kirsti Mathisen Hjemdahl has studied “how theme parks happen, what is taking place inside the theme parks and how the fairytales come true”

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(Hjemdahl 2003, 129). As Kirsi Mathisen Hjemdahl´s young assistant proves, we can even forgive quite confusing slips on a fairytale that has become true: “Look, why does Moominpappa come out of that house when he is si�ing in Moomin House Writing?” asks Aksel, “It must have been a Cheating Moominpappa at the typewriter.” (Hjemdahl 2003, 141.) In her research “A Changing Christmas - Muu�uva Joulu” Jaakkola found that in 208 families out of 280 that returned the questionnaire, the children believed or had believed in Santa Claus (Jaakkola 1977, 54-55). When a member of the family act as Santa, as o�en in Finland, it may be difficult to create an illusion of reality. On the other hand: believing in Santa Claus does not mean that Santa is a part of the real world. A person stretches his/her own interpretations of reality and gives space to fairytale. Some children in that survey, whose father o�en acted as Santa, stated: ”It is possible to play Santa Claus even if you know the truth”(Jaakkola 1977, 53-55). This is the point that guarantees Santa Claus’ steady status as the ambassador of good will and Christmas feeling – in spite of commerciality. As Pretes says, Santa Claus is a western cultural product, an image without actual original (Pretes 1995, 14). However, Santa Claus has a value as a fairytale figure, an idea that lives in our imagination. In a certain sense he does exist: as a marker of his own legend. Those numerous Santas in Christmas Eve and the one in Santa Claus Village are not hallucination.

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References Haavio, Mar�i 1942. Suomalaiset kodinhaltiat. Porvoo. Haavio, Mar�i 1938. Salaperäistä väkeä. In Hakulinen, Lauri (ed.): Hyvä Tuomas. Kansankul�uuria. Helsinki, 16-27. Hjemdahl, Kirsti Mathisen 2003. When Theme Parks Happen. In Jonas Frykman & Nils Gilje (eds.): Being There. New Perspectives on Phenomenology and the Analysis of Culture. Nordic Academic Press, 124-146. Hjemdahl, Kirsti Mathisen 1996. Inn i en drømmeverden. Om den kulturelle identitets mulighet i Kristiansand Temapark. Nordny� Nr 62. NEFA, 25-42. Hughes, George 1995. Authenticity In Tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 22 (4), 781-803. Jaakkola, Kaisu 1977. Muu�uva joulu. Kansatieteellinen tutkimus. Kansatieteellinen arkisto 28. Helsinki. Karjalainen, Sirpa 1994. Juhlan aika. Suomalaisia vuotuisperinteitä. Porvoo. Karjalainen, Sirpa, Korhonen, Teppo & Lehtonen Juhani U.E. 1989. Uusi ajantieto. Porvoo. Pretes, Michael 1995. Postmodern Tourism - The Santa Claus Industry. Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 22 (1), 1-15. Saarinen, Jarkko 1999. Matkailu, paikallisuus ja alueen identitee�i. Näkökulmia Lapin matkailun etnisiin maisemiin. In Tuominen et al.(ed.): Pohjoiset identiteetit ja mentaliteetit osa 1. Lapin yliopisto, 81-94. Salokorpi, Sinikka 1996. Joulupukin tarina. Keuruu. Sarmela, Ma�i 1994. Suomen Perinneatlas. Suomen kansankul�uurin kartasto 2. Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seuran toimituksia 587. SKS. Helsinki. Suominen, Hannele & Hakala, Sirkka-Liisa 2004. Tontut, satua vai to�a? Satakunnan museo. Pori.

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Veijola, Soile 2002. Aitoja elämyksiä näy�ämöllä: matkailun elämysteollisuuden sosiaalisesta ja taloudellisesta logiikasta. In Saarinen, Jarkko (ed.): Elämys. Teollisuu�a, talou�a vai jotakin muuta? Lapin yliopiston menetelmätieteellisiä tutkimuksia 2. Rovaniemi, 91-114. Vilkuna, Kustaa 1950/1972. Vuotuinen ajantieto. Vanhoista merkkipäivistä sekä kansanomaisesta talous- ja sääkalenterista enteineen. Helsinki.

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Santa Claus Tourism in Lapland Michael Pretes © Department of Geography Central Missouri State University Warrensburg, MO 64093 USA

As the Christmas season approaches, the thoughts of many of the world’s children turn to Santa Claus. Santa Claus is a legendary figure, based in part on European history and folklore, and partly on American refinements of that folklore. Santa Claus is thought to visit the world’s children on Christmas Eve, bringing with him presents as a reward for good behaviour during the previous year. All children know that Santa Claus lives somewhere in the far north, where winters are cold and snowy, and where reindeer are the principal means of transportation. Such a place is Lapland, and enterprising Finns have combined myth with reality in bringing about the creation of the Santa Claus Village in Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland province in Finland. In doing so, they have created a distinctive and appealing tourist site that attracts many tourists each year. In this article I will describe the origins of Santa Claus tourism in Lapland and comment on some possible reasons for its success, as well as on the dangers inherent in contrived tourist a�ractions.

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A Brief History of Santa Claus Land Lapland is the northernmost province in Finland, accounting for almost one-third of the country’s land area but only about five percent of its population. Lapland is one of the few remaining wilderness areas in Europe, which is an appealing feature on a continent that is largely se�led and densely populated. The province is famous for its wilderness scenery and its distinctive Sámi culture, both of which form the basis of tourism in the region. In the 1980s, the Finnish Tourism Board, eager to promote Finland’s tourism image, wanted to create a new marketing program that would reflect positively on Finland in general and on Lapland in particular (Joulumaa ry n.d.). The Board decided to focus on the theme of Christmas and Santa Claus as a tourism a�raction. In 1984, the Governor of Lapland declared the province ‘Santa Claus Land’, and initiated development of several Christmas-themed a�ractions. Santa Claus has an older history in Finland. In 1927, a Finnish radio commentator announced that he had discovered Santa Claus’s home at Korvatunturi, thus establishing, at least in the minds of Finns, that Santa Claus lived in Finland. The idea was plausible. The figure we know as Santa Claus is largely an American invention, based on earlier European Christmas figures such as Father Christmas, and even earlier on the historical figure of Saint Nicholas. The American Santa Claus (the name Americans derived from the Dutch ‘Sinterklaas’, or Saint Nicholas) made an appearance in both the popular 1822 poem ‘The Visit of Saint Nicholas’ by Clement Clarke Moore and in its illustrations by the caricaturist Thomas Nast, who first depicted Santa Claus as a white-bearded, rotund, jolly figure wearing a fur-trimmed suit. The poem and its illustrations also noted that Santa Claus travelled in a sleigh pulled by eight reindeer (a feature that points to his putative Lapland residence).

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The Santa Claus Village Finland drew on the American interpretation of the Santa Claus figure. Finland, and Lapland in particular, are northern, cold places, and contain reindeer. Lapland itself is something of a magical name, suggesting the remote north. All of this supported the idea that Santa Claus made his home in Finland. Drawing upon these associations, the Finnish Tourist Board helped set up subsidiary agencies that promoted the Santa Claus Land concept (Joulumaa ry n.d.). The most important of these is the Santa Claus Village located in Rovaniemi, right on the Arctic Circle. The location is important, as it suggests the extreme north. Furthermore, many tourists stopped at the Arctic Circle on the road heading north to have their picture taken. Placing a Santa Claus Village at this site would be an additional feature for tourists to visit. The Santa Claus Village opened in 1985, and now comprises a large enclosed complex containing Santa Claus’s cabin, his workshop and post office, and a variety of shops and restaurants. On the perimeter of the complex are located reindeer enclosures. The Village is located on the main north-south highway, and is very near the city of Rovaniemi’s airport, which can accommodate large jets. Given that Christmas is the season of Santa Claus; many tourists visit the Santa Claus Village around this time. Charter jets from the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe bring visitors for two- or three-day package tours, allowing them to experience not only the Santa Claus Village a�ractions themselves, but also reindeer-drawn sled rides, Sámi culture, and the beautiful snowy scenery of Lapland. Today the Santa Claus Village is one of the premier tourist a�ractions in northern Europe, receiving visitors from all over the world. Around a quarter of a million people visit it each year.

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Santa Claus in a Postmodern World The Santa Claus Village is a contrived a�raction, in that it was designed purely to appeal to tourists. What is the basis of its appeal? Why do so many people visit the Santa Claus Village each year? The answer may lie in the nature of postmodern society. In postmodern society, consumption, rather than production, is dominant, and the commodity a�ains the total occupation of social life, becoming what the French theorist Guy Debord (1983) called ‘the spectacle’. In this conception, society takes on the characteristics of a perpetual present, leading to nostalgia for ideas of the past (and even of the present and future). Reality gives way to representation, and the real is no longer meaningful or necessary. Events of the recent past seem remote, ancient events can seem modern. Boredom is widespread, and continuous visual stimulation is necessary to keep it at bay. Everything—history, time, space, culture—becomes a commodity, and can be mixed together, blended, pastiched, and then bought and sold. Tourism likewise becomes a commodity and can be consumed. Tourism has always been concerned with the visual and the spectacular. Its object is the object of the tourist gaze: the touristic sight becomes a systematic and organized encounter on which one gazes (Urry 1990). The tourist consumes constructed images or representations of a society, and any reality is obscured by the many levels of representation. Therefore, the tourist is unable to penetrate to any underlying reality (if any), but must consume the representation, the sign, or the image of the touristic object. Today one cannot look, for example, at the Eiffel Tower and see just a tower; instead, one sees a representation of ‘Paris’ and ‘France’. Consumption refers not to the process of satisfaction of needs—material goods are not the object of consumption—but rather to a process of consuming or manipulating

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signs: ‘it is the idea of the relation that is consumed’ (Baudrillard 1988, 22; emphasis in original). (Consider modern fashion as an example: it is not the material or cut of an article of clothing, or its effectiveness in covering the body, that is important, but rather the designer label a�ached to it—this is what is consumed.) Whether or not the consumption of representation is itself authentic has been the topic of much debate in the sociology of tourism. In a seminal work on this topic, the American historian Daniel Boorstin (1992) argued that contemporary Americans are unable to experience reality, but that they thrive on ‘pseudo-events’, i.e., on images or illusions that veil the real world. In Boorstin’s view, the tourist is less interested in experiencing another culture than in experiencing his idea of it. The adventure and work of travelling have disappeared: tourism becomes a packaged commodity. The tourist desires and is satisfied with contrived events. Stemming from this desire and satisfaction, the local population is induced to provide extravagant displays and pageants for the tourist. The American sociologist Dean MacCannell (1989) argues that tourists do seek the authentic: they are modern pilgrims seeking authenticity in other times and places. The tourist’s search for authenticity is confounded, however, by an elaborate front and back stage structure. Though the tourist a�empts to penetrate the touristic exterior, or ‘staged authenticity’, that obscures the authentic product underneath, she o�en finds that the local culture has established a ‘false back’: a seemingly authentic realm in which the tourist is permi�ed to wander, but is nevertheless still removed from the real culture. The question of touristic authenticity has also been addressed by the Italian semiotician Umberto Eco (1986). He argues that authenticity is not historical but visual: if something looks real, it is real. Eco also notes that some tourists perceive reproductions of an object as being more real—and

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therefore be�er—than the original. If a tourist views the reproduced object, he has no desire to see the original. Las Vegas and Disney World, both in the United States, play upon this notion. At these locations, tourists can visit reproductions of global sites (such as New York, Paris, or Morocco) and consume their essence, without the annoying details of foreign travel, such as higher prices, undrinkable water, rude or pushy locals, and the need for passports and visas. In Las Vegas and at Disney World, ruins have been restored, everything is clean and tidy and safe, and the entire world is grouped together within walking distance. MacCannell, in his book The Tourist (1989), has explained the appeal of tourist sites using a semiotic analysis. He argues that a site can consist of both a sight and a marker, or of both signified and signifier in semiotic terms. The marker, or signifier, is a piece of information that constitutes the site as a sight. The marker confers upon the site the information that makes it appealing to tourists. MacCannell gives as an example the rocks that astronauts brought back from the Moon. These rocks appeared very ordinary, but it was the information about them (the marker), the fact that they represents Marker (signifier) examples: Santa Claus (person) Santa Claus Village Arctic Circle sign

to Sight (signified)

Tourist

examples: Santa Claus (legend) Christmas Arctic Circle

Figure 1. Semiotic relationship between marker and sight (a�er MacCannell 1989).

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came from the Moon, that made them of interest to viewers. In such cases the tourist becomes more involved with the marker, rather than with the sight itself (Figure 1). The Santa Claus Village in Lapland capitalized on an earlier sight-marker relationship. The Arctic Circle is an invisible line around the Earth. It cannot be seen or photographed. But a sign indicating the location of the Arctic Circle (the marker) can be photographed, and indeed most tourists who cross the Arctic Circle have their photograph taken with the sign (the marker) and not the Arctic Circle itself (the sight). Thus the tourist interacts most closely with the marker, rather than with the sight. The same is true of the Santa Claus Village. The Village, with its pervasive Christmas theme, acts as a marker for the intangible, ungraspable sight of the holiday of Christmas. And Santa Claus—that is, the individual who appears as Santa Claus at the Santa Claus Village—acts as a marker for the intangible, ungraspable legendary Santa Claus. By visiting the Santa Claus Village, the tourist sees and interacts with ‘Christmas’. By visiting Santa Claus, the tourist sees and interacts with the ‘Santa Claus’ legend (Figure 1). Both Santa Claus and the Santa Claus Village are visual representations of abstract sights. By making the sight visible through its marker, the sight can become an object of consumption. The marker represents the sight and transforms it into a commodity, into something that can be packaged, purchased, and reproduced. An essential element in the operation of the Santa Claus Village in Lapland is convincing visitors that Lapland’s Santa Claus is the ‘real’ or ‘original’ Santa Claus, against rival claimants to that title in such places as Alaska and Norway. Like the originals of famous works of art, the value of the original lies in its rarity or uniqueness, rather than in the aesthetics of the image (Benjamin 1968). If Lapland’s Santa Claus were just one of many, he would not be nearly as appealing.

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Much of the appeal of the Santa Claus Village may lie in the concept of nostalgia and a romanticized longing for the past. Christmas and Santa Claus are especially associated with children and childhood. When adults visit the Santa Claus Village in Lapland, they may be reminded of their own childhood experiences, and relive the magic and joy of believing in Santa Claus. Santa Claus and his village have become simultaneously commodity, spectacle, and representation: Christmas is now available in consumable form. As Baudrillard notes, ‘in order to become the object of consumption, the object must become sign’ (1988, 22; emphasis in original). The Santa Claus Village is a species of theme park, a city built entirely of image, and appealing to nostalgia, to the past as we imagine it, not as it really was. Theme parks recreate (or create in the first place) a lost Golden Age. They are machines for ‘the continuous transformation of what exists … into what doesn’t’ (Sorkin 1992, 232). Christmas is a holiday associated with gi� giving. In its earlier forms Christmas was largely a religious celebration, and the giving and receiving of gi�s created social bonds within a family or community. As Christmas becomes secularized—as Saint Nicholas was transformed into Santa Claus—its gi�-giving tradition has likewise changed, becoming associated with spending and consuming. Gi� giving is now inextricably linked with gi� buying.

Conclusion The Santa Claus Village in Lapland has transformed Santa Claus and Christmas into tangible, consumable commodities. There is a danger that in doing so Santa Claus and Christmas will lose much of their enchantment. The key difficulty for tourist a�ractions such as the Santa Claus Village is main-

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taining a sense of enchantment and magic while offering the more tangible benefits that tourist a�ractions provide for the community. Santa Claus is a western cultural product, a simulacrum, a copied image for which no original exists. The image of Santa Claus is now widely reproduced and consumed. The touristic value of Lapland’s Santa Claus is that he is claimed to be the ‘original’ of a reproduced image. This image, however, is not unique to Lapland, but has been copied and imitated in many countries. Like the originals of famous works of art, the value of the original now lies in its rarity, rather than in the aesthetics of the image (Benjamin 1968; Berger 1972). The success or failure of Finland’s strategy lies in convincing tourists that Lapland’s Santa Claus is the ‘original’, and thus worth seeing. Santa Claus and the Santa Claus Village are features of the postmodern touristic landscape, a landscape marked by spectacle. Santa Claus and his village have been transformed into commodities for consumption; they act as markers for the intangible sights of Christmas. In the case of Santa Claus, tourists consume the marker and thereby consume a nostalgic conception of Christmas.

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References Baudrillard, Jean 1988. The System of Objects. In Poster, Mark (ed.): Selected Writings. Polity Press. Cambridge, 10-28. Benjamin, Walter 1968. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. In Arendt, Hannah (ed.): Illuminations. Schocken. New York, 217-251. Berger, John 1972. Ways of Seeing. Penguin. Harmondsworth. Boorstin, Daniel 1992. The Image: A Guide to Pseudo-Events in America. Vintage. New York. Debord, Guy 1983. The Society of the Spectacle. Black and Red. Detroit. Eco, Umberto 1986. Travels in Hyperreality. Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich. San Diego. Joulumaa ry. no date. Santa Claus Land Press Releases. Joulumaa ry. Rovaniemi. MacCannell, Dean 1989. The Tourist. Schocken. New York. Sorkin, Michael 1992. See You in Disneyland. In Sorkin, Michael (ed.): Variations on a Theme Park. Noonday. New York, 205232. Urry, John 1990. The Tourist Gaze. Sage. London.

Note This article is largely excerpted from the author’s earlier study, ‘Postmodern Tourism: The Santa Claus Industry’, Annals of Tourism Research 1995. 22 (1), 1-15.

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Power of Myth, Magic and Miniature – Christmas and Lapland in Picture Books Sisko Ylimartimo © PhD, DA University of Lapland Faculty of Art and Design sisko.ylimartimo@ulapland.fi

As Gaston Bachelard says (2003, 332), a miniature is a home for greatness. One detail – he continues – can signify a whole new world which, like all worlds, has the features and character of greatness. Umberto Eco (1990, 64-67) discusses that an art work – literal or pictorial – can be a real small world. It has its own logic true in the fantastic world which is a cultural construction and which can be opened by the help of our interpretation. For this article, I chose three picture books, real small worlds and cultural constructions. As to their sizes, they are suitable for children’s hands. Adults can enjoy their pictures and texts as well. Reality, myths, history and folklore are combined in them. They create miniatures: new magic worlds by using and interpreting the cultural heritage of Christmas and Lapland.

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A New Legend: the Nativity Tale Retold How did Santa Claus come to Lapland? One answer is possibly given by Kenneth Steven in his book The Bearer of Gi�s, which is beautifully illustrated by Lily Moon. This book creates a magic tale, in which we can see a skilful composition of the Christian heritage of Christmas, Santa Claus’ history, the Lappish milieu and the Sámis’ old nomadic life. As Kenneth Stewen tells on his homepage (h�p://www. books-of-imagination.com), he comes from Sco�ish Highlands. He is a full-time poet, novelist, translator and artist. He has also wri�en two children’s books: The Bearer of Gi�s and The Song of the Trees. The former is said to be “a radiant reinterpretation of the Santa Claus legend”, the la�er is “a beautiful and thought provoking book in the style of a folk tale”. Stewen lived for a year among Sámi (Lapp) people in Norway and studied their ancient lore, history and stories, which inspired him to create a new legend. The Bearer of Gi�s tells about how one wintry night in Lapland, a brilliant new star appears in the sky. A lonely, white-bearded wood-carver sees it and knows in his heart that it is a sign of something strange and wonderful. This humble man follows the star across the world to a small stable where a newborn baby is sleeping in a manger. The poor wood-carver opens the door and comes in: “As the child’s parents watched in amazement, a small miracle happened. From head to toe the man glowed with a great warmth, and his rough clothing became thick and so� as it turned from blue to the richest, deepest red.” The blue colour of his clothing, as a colour o�en heavenly and divine, symbolizes, however, the wood-carver’s former life, spiritually empty, waste and cold. In a negative sense blue can mean to be sad, too (Becker 1994, 43). As he sees the

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Figure 1. The Bearer of Gi�s tells how a wood-carver became Santa Claus. wonderful star, he unconsciously knows it is very important and he wants to follow it. When the dress becomes red lit by the baby’s golden halo, it means the birth of Santa Claus. But red can be seen symbolically and positive as a colour of life, love and warmth (Becker 1994, 246). The wood carver’s sack is already quite empty. He finds only a small wooden star. He gives it to the child. Lily Moon has depicted the star as a cross. This interpretation of the illustrator as if predicts the child’s future life. As a mankind we can be sad because our sacks are so empty that we can – like the wood-carver – give to our saviour only suffering.

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The wood-carver returns to Lapland. It is summertime; wild flowers are blooming and birds singing everywhere. He goes from camp to camp and tells the story about the wonderful star and child. When the winter, snow and dark days come, he begins – inspired by the blessed child – to carve toys for all the children he knows. Now this man lives in a far-away northern forest in Lapland. He makes gi�s for all children. Some know him as Father Christmas, Sinter Klaas or Kriss Kringle, others call him Santa Claus and his Finnish name is Joulupukki. Lily Moon is an English artist. Her pictures are full of sensation and feelings. She is influenced by primitive art and old textiles, which can be seen in her illustrations, too: decorative frames, both strong and sensitive colours and simple forms full of deformation – like in children’s drawings. The wood-carver, for instance, has a tiny head, a large body and thin and small hands. His reindeer and dog look like toys. The forms of pictures are different: some are long and ribbon-like, others are squares or lune�es. The short text does not prevent their dramatic running and motion from page to page. A double-page with its three square pictures is like a triptych: we can follow the summer events, green forests and fields as well as a flowing blue river from one picture to another. The illustrator loves blue and red tones: we can see brilliant ultramarine, indigo, purple and violet. With her radiant style, Lily Moon has also illustrated The Song of the Trees.

Tiny Elves, a lot of Friendship and Love Tarlena is a new and friendly character in Santa Claus’ land. She is a tiny elf-girl with small pointy ears, thin braids and a red dress. Tarlena and her magic world have been created in Elina Karjalainen’s imagination and depicted by Christel

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Rönns. Karjalainen is a beloved and well-known Finnish story-teller, who has wri�en many children’s books, biographies and causeries. Christel Rönns has created her easily recognizable style, which can be seen to be influenced partly by comics, caricatures and maybe some more well-known illustrators. She started her career by illustrating school and non-fiction books. (Bengtsson 2002, 191-192.) In its humour and kindness, her illustration speaks the same language as Karjalainen’s text in Tarlena, the Elf-Girl on a Journey to Christmas. As a tiny girl, Tarlena is a distant relative of Thumbelina by Hans Christian Andersen. She was dropped onto a water-lily leaf pad from the arms of the Southwind. Elves are not born in homes or hospitals. Their birth is absolutely magical, because they are born of sunlight, the greenness of a forest and the lapping of blue waves on a lake. Tarlena helps Santa Claus as she can tie very beautiful bows for Christmas packages. But now she has wandered away from the other elves who are going to Santa Claus’ land. Santa Claus himself sends out some elves to search her. Tarlena is found by Mama Maxim, a Very Important Person, who lives in the village of Birdsong. The elf-girl gets a friend, a fairy girl called Blue-wings, who has long redbrown hair, a yellow dress and translucent wings. They go to school and see that human life is not always friendly: they even meet those who bully smaller pupils but they also get friends. In Tarlena’s experiences, we can also find themes known of Zacharias Topelius’ fairy tale Sammy and the Mountain King and Tove Jansson’s Moominland Midwinter. One of the most exciting episodes is a nocturnal celebration, during which wild animals are gathering together to sing, play and dance. Night is the mysterious darkness, symbol of irrational and even death – but it can also mean the protective and fertile maternal womb. With its wild animals we meet our

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Figure 2. Tarlena is a tiny elf-girl, who can learn very much. unconsciousness (Becker 1994, 211). All this is the symbol of the dark journey of the soul that we could learn our lesson in the life – Tarlena has lost her way to learn, too. In spite of the serious theme, or for its sake, Karjalainen’s text is full of humour (“And the grandpa frog, whose name is To�i / Sings a lot be�er than old Pavaro�i”) compared to more serious Topelius and Jansson, whose small creatures feel themselves so small and are even frightened. The end is, of course, happy; the elves sent out by Santa Claus finally find Tarlena. They all ride back to Santa Claus’ land on a white winged reindeer, which is like a Lappish

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Pegasus. And Tarlena still has time to make her lovely bows. Can we find any morals from this small book? Maybe the most important one is the deep understanding and accepting of each other’s different experiences. Santa Claus does not really judge Tarlena for losing her way, because he understands that the tiny girl has learnt many important and valuable facts during her quest.

Earth Spirits in a Postmodern Form When I first saw a small book called Pieni maahiskirja (A Glimpse of the Sámi Earth Spirits), I was greatly fascinated by the pictorial skills of two young illustrators, Nina Haiko and Minna Lämsä. They illustrated old Sámi stories, which were originally collected in Lapland in the early 1900’s. Now the stories are in the folklore archives of the Finnish Literature Society. The stories are mostly rather short. They are not ordinary fairy tales: the Sámi word ´máinnas´ means a story, which can be true or fiction, told both to children and adults. This book consists of six stories, which are slightly modernized as to their verbal expression. They deal with earth spirits (‘gufihtars’), and a giant ogre (‘stállu’), which both are important figures in the old Sámi narrative tradition. The gufihtars are spirits living under the ground. Their name in Finnish is ´maahinen´ (´maa’ = ‘earth’) (Laestadius 1994, 96). Stállu is very clumsy and slow, thus a clever man can easily beat him. Maybe he can also be seen as one of Santa Claus’ pagan forefathers, but he is really evil. L. L. Laestadius, one of the most important researchers of old Sámi folktales and traditional faith, describes that earth spirits can even marry human beings, because they are very much like them. (Laestadius 1994, 319.)

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It is also interesting how Laestadius discusses the relationship between the poet and the myth: “The poet or versifier has given the myth its colouring. Nothing can be removed or added without damaging the whole.” (Laestadius 1994, 319.) This view is very much like the conception of the small world by Eco. We can apply this idea to illustration as well: an illustrator gives a verbal myth more colouring and real extra value with his or her pictorial interpretation. A successful visualization of tales, stories and myths is a whole formed by a text, pictures, typography and lay-out. As a unity, it is a story in itself – as A Glimpse of the Sámi Earth Spirits. Nina Haiko and Minna Lämsä made their illustrations for a thesis in Kymenlaakso Polytechnic, Media Communication Department. Nina drew the colour pictures by using mixed media, Minna made the black-and-white ones. She used the scraperboard technique. They also designed the lay-out and typography. Their idea was to combine the works of two illustrators so that their different techniques and interpretations would form a complete and coherent whole. (Haiko 2001, 5-9.) They also studied the history and old culture of Sámi people. For their visual interpretations, they familiarized themselves with the elements of composition and the world of fantasy and fairy tale illustration, too. The illustrators’ artistic solutions are very interesting. For example a really short story “The Two Houses of a Gufihtar” consists of a few lines only: “Everyone knew that there were gufihtars living in the Iskuras River. There was a house that could only be seen at night, but no-one was afraid of it. The house belonged to a gufihtar wife who also had a house under the ground. At night, the wife worked in both houses. Her cows were bigger and plumper than anyone else’s.”

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Figure 3. Illustration for “The Two Houses of a Gufihtar” by Nina Haiko. That is all. Nina Haiko (2001, 31) discusses how she got the idea for her image. As the form, she chose the circle, because it is common in old Sámi houseware. It also symbolizes both rotation and continuity. The circle is divided into two parts. The upper part is full of a golden day, the sun is shining and the gufihtar’s house invisible. The lower part is filled with a dark blue night. In the light of the crescent moon the house can now be seen. Because the gufihtar is rich, the vertical diameter is a blue river full of fishes. At night, trees bear fruit, but in daytime they are empty because of the poverty of people living on the earth. It is very tempting to interpret this story and its illustration psychically, too. Marie-Louise von Franz, a Jungian

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fairy tale researcher, says that a circle, mandala, can also symbolize Self, the completion of the inner essential being (von Franz 1996, 121; see also Jung 1973, 73). I am not sure, if she – and the illustrator – could have accepted my interpretation, according which day and poor human beings could symbolize the conscious part of the psyche. Night and rich earth spirits mean the unconscious: that part of psyche, from which we can find spiritual power and treasures in dreams, myths and fairy tales. As the name of the story “A Sámi Child at a Gufihtar’s Place” tells, a child gets lost and meets an old gufihtar woman, who asks him to come with her. According to the tradition, the earth spirits are small, but this woman is tall, because she can be dangerous for the child. She also has a black, round aura. But she has a white dress and helping hands: she is also like a guardian angel, who can take the child away from the cold mountain. By using blue and orange, the artist accentuates the supernatural event and the silence of the wintry mountains. A part of this picture can be seen on the cover of the book, because we can see mystical features typical of the earth spirits: white reindeer, white clothes and the role of a person changing children. (Haiko 2001, 31-32.) Circles can be seen in some drawings by Minna Lämsä as well. Horns of reindeer, a Sámi man with his magic drum, the moon like a magic bear (or the other way round!) and a drinking cup (called ´kuksa´) have been depicted by using this universal form. Even if the scraperboard is not the easiest one of all the techniques, Minna has obtained some interesting results. If we compare Nina’s and Minna’s styles with each other, the former is more decorative and the la�er more realistic. However, their illustration for A Glimpse of the Sámi Earth Spirits is really a coherent unity – an experience of the power of myth, magic and miniature – a small world which becomes a home of spiritual greatness.

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Figure 4. Nina Haiko’s illustration for “A Sámi Child at a Gufihtar’s Place”. The beautifully wri�en and lavishly illustrated books of the lonely wood-carver, the tiny elf-girl and earth spirits interpret our eternal myths of becoming and being humans, even though we easily think them to be “only” for children’s amusement. In their small forms, they create a whole new world: this new and enjoyable reality is a cultural construction, which we can understand and experience with our knowledge, spirit and imagination.

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References Bachelard, G. 2003. Tilan poetiikka. (La poétique de l’ espace.) Suom. Tarja Roinila. Nemo. Helsinki. Becker, U. 1994. The Continuum Encyclopedia of Symbols. Transl. by Lance W. Garner. Continuum. New York. Bengtsson, N. 2002. Christel Rönns. In Loivamaa, I. (ed.) Kotimaisia lastenkirjankuvi�ajia. BTJ Kirjastopalvelu Oy. Helsinki, 190-195. Eco, U. 1990. The Limits of Interpretation. Bloomington & Indianapolis. University Press. Indianapolis. von Franz, M-L. 1996. The Interpretation of Fairy Tales. Revised edition. Shambhala Publications. Boston & London. Haiko, N. 2001. Pieni maahiskirja. Saamelaisten kansantarujen kuvitus ja tai�o. (A Li�le Books of saami Earth Spirits – the Illustration and Layout of Saami Folktales.) Painamaton opinnäytetyö. (Thesis, unpublished.) Kymenlaakson ammattikorkeakoulu, viestinnän osasto. (Kymenlaakso Polytechnic, Media Communication Department.) Haiko, N. 2002. A Glimpse of the Sámi Earth Spirits. KustannusPuntsi. Jyväskylä. Jung, C. G. 1973. Mandala Symbolism. Transl. by R. F. C. Hull. Princeton University Press. Princeton, N. J. Karjalainen, E. 2003. Tarlena, the Elf-girl on a Journey to Christmas. Ill. by Christel Rönns. Transl. by Aili & Austin Flint. WSOY. Helsinki. Laestadius, L. L. 1994. Katkelmia lappalaisten mytologiasta (Fragments of Sámi Mythology, edited by Nilla Outakoski). Deanu Kultur ja Musea. Tallinn. Steven, K. 1998. The Bearer of Gi�s. Ill. by Lily Moon. Dial Books. New York.

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Their Peculiar Christmas Tree – Experiences of Beauty in Wintry Moominvalley Sisko Ylimartimo © PhD, DA University of Lapland Faculty of Art and Design sisko.ylimartimo@ulapland.fi

Tove Jansson (1914–2001) created a whole small world: Moominvalley with its personal people. We can identify ourselves with Moomintroll, Moominmamma, Moominpappa, the Snork Maiden, Li�le My and sometimes, unfortunately, even with nervous hemulens and neurotic Gaffsie. The world of the Moomins is well-known among both children and adults. We enjoy these books very emotionally and take pleasure in their texts and pictures in our own ways. While a child may read or listen to the stories as adventures and be afraid of the dark shadows in the drawings, an adult is able to think about the philosophy of the Moomins and enjoy the living lines and expressive forms in the pictures (Ylimartimo 1994, 106). One of Jansson’s most typical topics is a quest (Ylimartimo 2005, 39–41). The Moomins have to travel away to find their essential characters. They grow up, mature and cover during the magical journey in the forest, mountains, desert

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or even the bo�om of the sea, and it does not quite pass without trouble or misfortune. They come back home psychically richer and happier. If they stay at home, a danger will appear to threat their paradise: a flood, a comet – or even Christmas. Tove Jansson and Hans Christian Andersen, two great storytellers from the Northern Countries, had something in common, because they were both literally and pictorially very talented. They developed their artistic characters systematically and found their own paths in quite a different way from what they first dreamed about: they became much more famous as tale writers than as an actor (Andersen) or a painter (Jansson). And they both wrote a story called The Fir Tree. As Andersen’s fir tree symbolizes the fleeting of time and perishable beauty, Jansson’s tree gave her an opportunity to criticize our hectic and stressful Christmas time. Boel Westin (1988, 343) says that Jansson characterized the child as a camouflage, an excuse for the adult author’s so-called naivism. Through the Moominworld and its characters, Jansson reveals our reality both as a comedy and a tragedy, breaks conventions and sha�ers social standards. The Fir Tree shows how this naivism opens up new perspectives. The Moomins’ experience of Christmas is depicted as a sort of culture shock, because they have no idea about what Christmas stands for. This short story can easily be read as a protest. However, my discussion is not primarily on our experiences about the Moomin books but the aesthetic and other emotional experiences of the Moomins themselves in The Fir Tree. This li�le story was published in Tales from Moominvalley (first published in Finnish: Näkymätön lapsi, 1962). I used an English translation which is made by Linnéa Anglemark and published in the Internet (h�p://nea.pp.se/firtree.html) in 2002. In my text, I also present images of the Christmas tree in Moominvalley.

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Christmas Is Coming! In the wintertime, the Moomins usually sleep like bears. In order to make Moomintroll’s emotional growth clear, Jansson wrote Moominland Midwinter (first published in Finland in 1957). In this book, something amazing happened: Moomintroll woke up in the mid-winter, while the rest of the family continued sleeping. He had to get familiar with the mysterious powers of the winter. He saw snow falling down from the sky, not growing out of the ground, as he first imagined. When he could understand and rule the winter, he could also rule himself. At the beginning of The Fir Tree, the Moomins are sleeping quietly and calmly in their house. But suddenly, a nervous and hot-headed hemulen decides to interrupt their nice sleep: “So he stomped on down the stairs, threw the door open and shouted angrily: Christmas is coming! I’m sick and tired of you and your eternal sleeping and it’s going to be Christmas at any moment now!”

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The family wake up li�le by li�le. Christmas? Moomintroll has never heard about Christmas. Still half-asleep and drowsy, he understands and interprets the hemulen’s words in his own way. Extremely frightened, he goes to his mother saying that something dreadful is happening: they call it Christmas. It is not easy to solve the mystery of Christmas. Li�le by li�le, when hearing the noise and seeing the hurry and stress of all other inhabitants and creeps of the valley, the Moomins form their own images and thoughts about Christmas. It is something most awful and terrible, something they must conciliate with sacrifices to avoid a great disaster. They ask what they possibly need and get answers li�le by li�le: A fir tree! Food! Gi�s!

How to Dress a Fir Tree? Fir tree? Nobody can tell them why they need it, but Moominpappa climbs to Gaffsie’s garden and takes a tree which he thinks to be quite useless to her. And what to do with the fir tree? Gaffsie sighs that they have to dress it. Dress? Moominmamma thinks they have no clothes of that size. A shy and small woodland-creep whispers that they have to dress the tree with beautiful things: “As beautiful as you can. That’s what I have heard.” From this point onwards, we can see how the Moomins are decorating the fir tree with things which they think to be beautiful and which have brought them joy and aesthetic experiences. Morally, their sacrifices are of high value, because in order to prevent the horrible disaster which Christmas will bring, they give things which they love and think to be their best ones. As to decorating a Christmas tree, we can see that the Moomins like “gold and gli�er” maybe less than we do. On the branches, they put white sea-shells, which are a message of the beloved and desired summer, because Moominmamma uses them around her flowerbeds. I believe she heartily sacrifices them to Christmas: in the summer she can go to the shore and find new ones. The Snork Maiden’s beautiful pearl necklace is also hung there. This is really a great sacrifice, because she is a li�le bit conceited and really loves her jewels. We can even hear her sigh! They also take crystals from the chandelier in the drawing-room and put them on the branches. Now they have brought their most wonderful and beautiful things on the branches. But what to put up to the top? It is the most important part of the tree, and there they have to put something really precious in order to mollify the incomprehensible powers of Christmas and winter. Anything but the symbol of full love is out of question: they hang

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there a red silk rose which Moominmamma once got from her husband. For their love, the parents sacrifice their love. The hemulen’s aunt, who is passing by, stares at the Moomins’ fir tree. She criticizes it, because it is peculiar, not like the fir trees of other people. But, she thinks, it is no wonder: “… you always were peculiar…” Her own experiences are rather negative and narrow-minded. She goes hastily away calling out that she must cook for Christmas. Anyway, the tree is now dressed and decorated and the Moomins are waiting for that awful Christmas. Moominmamma thinks that this strange (and maybe big) creature must be very hungry, because the hemulen’s aunt hurried to cook. The Moomins bring food in cups which are arranged around the tree. In the valley below them, they see candles being lit in the windows. Moomintroll goes to the house and takes all the candles he can find. He places them in the snow around the tree. We can imagine how beautifully they shine. For the Moomins, however, the light still means safety in their dangerous life.

Somehow Misunderstood? Very depressed and stressed, the hemulen goes around with a long list: gi�s! Gi�s for everybody! More and more gi�s! Again the Moomins must take things, which they highly appreciate and which are their treasures, now as gi�s. “To Christmas”, they write on the wrappings, which they put under the tree. Moominmamma takes a colourful picturebook, the only book of that sort in the valley, Moominpappa his best trolling spoon, the Snork Maiden her anklet and Moomintroll… he never tells anybody what he presents to Christmas. I think secrets are very important at his age. Small woodland-creeps come and look at the tree, decorations, candles, food and gi�s. “Merry Christmas”, whis-

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pers one of them shyly. The Moomins are very astonished: they think this small creature is the first one to call Christmas ‘merry’. To be safe, they go to their house. They see how the creeps eat the food, open the gi�s and climb up the tree and a�ach the candles on the branches. The creeps sit quiet there like mystics which are approaching the heaven or refugees from the wildermess (e.g. von Franz 1993, 149; 1996, 107). The Moomins hear that the creeps would like to have a star at the top. But a creep understands the good purpose of the red silk rose: “Does it really ma�er, as long as the general idea is the right one?” They – however – get the star: “They looked at the sky, black and remote but incredibly studded with stars, a thousand times more of them than in the summer. And the largest of them hung right over the top of their fir tree.” Suddenly, they are no more afraid of that mysterious Christmas. Moominmamma is tired: She sees that it seems to be going all right. Moomintroll says that all the other creatures, a. o. the hemulen with his aunt and Gaffsie, somehow misunderstood it. The Moomins themselves misunderstood it at first by listening to the hemulen’s and other creatures’ fragmentary messages. Now their eyes have opened to positive aesthetic and emotional experiences. They can see the glory and beauty of their fir tree. The white shells and pearls are shining and bright crystals gli�ering. The red rose, symbol of their earthly love, has been lit by the great and golden star, the heavenly and eternal love. The darkness is full of candle light and the winter is no more cold for the warm hearts. The Moomins gave away their treasures to hungry and freezing small creeps. Unconsciously, they found the essential Christmas, not hemulens’ and Gaffsie’s disastrous and unhappy one.

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Figure 1. Tove Jansson: Black-and-white illustration for The Fir Tree in Näkymätön lapsi (Tales of Moominwalley).

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The Visual and Pictorial Fir Tree In a great black-and-white picture drawn by Jansson, the fir tree is in its full decoration and glory. We see a larger collection of things than she mentioned in the text, the Moomins’ personal, beautiful and precious items: for instance, a small umbrella, a teapot, Moominpappa’s hat, a mirror with a handle (or a hair brush?) a model of a ship, a balloon and a piece of thin fabric. The outlines loose their firmness and there are gaps between them – like in the illustrations for some other books by Jansson which belong to her later period. What has been lost in firmness has been gained by increased expressivity, which conveys the impression, that now, more than ever before, the Moomins’ task to express sentiments and moods in the text. When they evolve towards greater independence, they develop towards greater simplicity in the formal sense. (Holländer 1994, 25.) We can see the figure of the fir tree resemble them as if it is one of them. With its simple and at the same time very powerful and expressive outlines, this special picture tells about the possibility of a single drawing to expand our visual interpretation outside the text. The Moomins obviously try to guess the gender of Christmas. Thus Mamma and the Snork Maiden give things typically female, Pappa and Moomintroll male ones. The dark and shimmering sky is full of stars sparkling like fireworks, which emphasizes the splendour, solemnity and festivity of Christmas. Jansson also drew a coloured version of the fir tree in Moominvalley. She made it – called Wonder of Christmas – as a Christmas card for UNICEF in 1971. In this lavish illustration, we can see things known from the original black-andwhite drawing: pearl necklaces on the branches and a candle in the snow. But something is different, partly more usual and conventional. We do not see the red rose but a golden

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Figure 2. Tove Jansson: Wonder of Christmas. A card for UNICEF. (By permission of UNICEF.)

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star shining at the top. Decorations, i.e. colourful glass balls, white snowflakes and paper hearts are familiar from our own Christmas trees. Jansson was thinking about the world’s children when drawing this beautiful UNICEF card. The small creeps sitting on the branches and standing in the snow are children with different races: what a clear message for peace against discrimination of all kind! The background is full of gli�ering lights, stars or fireworks. The story of the fir tree can also be seen in Moominvalley Museum, which is located the same building as the City Library of Tampere. Tove Jansson with her close friends Tuulikki Pietilä and Per�i Eistola, built doll installations about the central events in the world of Moominvalley. When I was planning Magic Christmas, an exhibition of Finnish fairy tale illustrations for Rovaniemi Art Museum in November 2003, I knew that it was not possible to get this original fir tree installation to the exhibition. So, the exhibition team built an everyman’s installation with Moomins, the red rose, pearls, crystals and shells on the tree branches, as well as candles in the snow. Lit by electric candles, the fir tree and the Moomins told the mystery of magic Christmas to everyone who could understand it. The installation radiated peace: all Gaffsies or hemulens spoilt by their Christmas neuroses were away. We built the Moomin corner of the Art Museum with Moominmamma’s table and armchair where the visitors could sit and read Moomin books published in many languages. Children loved the corner with its installation. They said the story itself is very thoughtful and profound. An essential factor in Tove Jansson’s world of fantasy is the problem of philosophy of life, also typical of modernism. In their harmony, the Moomins are in continuous movement, they question the elements of existence and look for models of the good life. (Niemi 1994, 11.) When we return to

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Figure 3. The Fir Tree and the Moomins in Rovaniemi Art Museum. (Photo: Sisko Ylimartimo.)

the depth of The Fir Tree, we can maybe smile at ourselves. Our habits – if we think the hemulen with his aunt and Gaffsie to be caricatures of our ways of preparing our Christmas – seem very strange, when they are seen by the Moomins’ eyes. Have we somehow misunderstood everything, as Moomintroll says at the end of the story? Do we experience Christmas in a wrong way? Can our way of living bear deeper observation? The Moomins, those small and modest creatures, are able to open our eyes for inner and more satisfying experiences. The fir tree becomes a real life tree, a great and shining pole in our world during the darkest days of a year.

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References von Franz, M-L. 1980. The Psychological Meaning of Redemption Motifs in Fairytales. Inner City Books. Toronto. von Franz, M-L. 1993. The Feminine in Fairy Tales. Shambhala Books. Boston & London. Holländer, T. 1994. Paradise and Paradise lost. An Analysis of the Illustrations in Tove Jansson’s Moominbooks. Onnimanni 2/1994, 20-33. Jansson, T. 1962. Näkymätön lapsi ja muita kertomuksia. [Tales from Moominvalley.] Suom. Laila Järvinen. WSOY. Porvoo. Jansson, T. 2002. The Fir Tree. Transl. by Linnéa Anglemark. Available at: h�p://nea.pp.se/firtree.html [accessed 10-10-2005]. Niemi, J. 1994. The World of Tove Jansson’s fiction. Onnimanni 2/1994, 6-19. Westin, B. 1988. Familjen i dalen. Tove Janssons muminvärld. Bonniers. Stockholm. Ylimartimo, S. 1994. Illustrations are both frightening and inspiring. Onnimanni 2/1994, 106. Ylimartimo, S. 2005. Windows on the Enchanted Forest. The Picture as an Interpreter of the Mind in the Modern Finnish Picture Book. Finnish Picture Books and Illustrations for Children – Virikkeitä 3/2005, 38-46.

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Christmas as Symbolic Projection of Human Psyche: Jungian View on Psychological Meaning of Christmas Time Juha Perttula © PhD University of Lapland juha.perttula@ulapland.fi

Yesterday evening I was looking at a colourful Christmas decoration in my neighbour’s window. Now I am listening how another neighbour, one floor above, is singing and playing the guitar. I can recognize the traditional Christmas songs. Christmas is here again, in 21 November, more than one month before Christmas Day. I feel comfortable but wondering why all this. Why Christmas comes every year? How to understand the distinctive meaning Christmas has maybe even for the majority of people living in western cultures?

Preliminary Words to Christmas as Psychological Phenomenon Many behavioural changes associating with Christmas have occurred for sure, although the symbols used for example by

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my neighbours are truly conventional. In my view, when the changes are occurring, they are new manifestations of the same Christmas. That is, the changes realized are recently invented behavioural versions of a Christmas core. Those versions symbolize in novel ways what is Christmas, and they have become feasible a�er social and economic alterations. Therefore, Christmas is not any behavioural or symbolic act whether remaining traditional or creating something new. Instead, Christmas is something, which these acts are signifying. This is one possible interpretation, and pu�ing in this way, Christmas is deeply psychological phenomenon. Maybe psychological approach is able to explain, why Christmas appears quite resistant to social and cultural features, which in general have transformed the western societies toward more fragmentation and individualization. The question is what is psychologically so special in Christmas that it seems to remain out of this cultural change? The prior assumptions, then, are that Christmas has some interior and that it can articulate itself in varied behavioural and symbolic ways, and that the emerged new Christmas acts do not necessarily mean any psychological change.

Unconscious in Jung’s Analytical Psychology My psychological approach to Christmas derives from the ideas of Carl Gustav Jung (1875 - 1961). If anybody, he represented “psychological psychology” within the discipline, which has later turn ever more away from studying experiences towards behavioural science and the positive observations it requires as a methodological tool (see Jung 1989, 206-209). For Jung, psychology is first of all science studying mental phenomena, if using the concept introduced by Franz Brentano (see Brentano 1995). This kind of psychology

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is una�ainable by observational acts simply because it is impossible to observe mental phenomena. I am fully aware that Jung’s views are theoretically controversial, that he derived broad cultural conclusions from human psyche, and that some of his ideas are vague and mythologizing (see e.g. Pietikäinen 1999). I am critical to Jungian view too. Nevertheless, I appreciate his insistence on developing psychology of psychic life regardless of how complex and incomplete it may be. Jung agrees for instance with Plato and Kant that there are a priori factors in human conscious acts. For Jung, this meant that human psyche is preformed too. There is something in consciousness that individuals have not acquired. Jung (2002, 77) asked, “Can it be possible that a man only thinks or says or does what he himself is?” His answer was yes. It can be true, by supposing that there is an innate structure in human psyche which makes a person to be oneself, and which presents itself in her thinking and acting. Being me is by now there before any realized conscious act (see Jung 1989, 136). Jung’s analytical psychology is one main branch of the psychodynamic tradition originated in Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory (e.g. Ewen 1988; see also Jung 1989, 200-225). A�er working together with Freud, Jung begun to develop alone the theory of human psyche. The main theoretical reason for their intellectual split was that Jung could not acknowledge the weight Freud gave to sexual drives and to personal needs or conflicts in human unconscious life (e.g. Crain 2005; see also Jung 1989, 132-142 and Jung, 2001, 165-188). At structural level, Jung’s theory of human psyche is more detailed than Freud’s tripartite stance on human personality (id, ego and superego) (see e.g. Ewen 1988). The construal Jung provided particularly for unconscious is notably interesting for this article. Jung discussed Christianity, Christians, Christ-child

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and even Christmas tree (e.g. Jung 2002), but as far as I know, he never set ‘existential’ issue of Christmas as I am doing here. The reason to base my thinking on Jung’s view on a human psyche is vague but intuitively certain: his theory of unconscious in general and the way he perceives the relation between human psyche and cultural symbols or myths in particular may give the light to my everyday wondering, why the same Christmas is here once again. I presume that Jung’s theory is helpful compared with numerous scientifically more recognized psychological approaches. Jung (2002, 4) argued that, besides personal consciousness (or ego) and personal unconscious, there exists a suprapersonal dimension in human psyche as well. From that, he used the term collective unconscious, which in general implies the cultural heritage within the human psyche. What did he mean by this doubtful idea? Jung claimed that the history of the human race is intrinsically at hand in every individual psyche. His theory has, then, obviously evolutionary tone. Jung (2002, 42) writes “[...] the contents of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and therefore have never been individually acquired, but owe their existence exclusively to heredity.” He continues, “In addition to our immediate consciousness [...], there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals” (Jung 2002, 43). In daily life, this means that any person does not have to discover everything, which belongs to her psyche. Our ancestors have already learned, or be�er say, experienced a lot which helps us to manage in our life now. At behavioural level, this means that everybody is able to act also in the ways she has never learned or tried by herself during the lifetime. Hence, for Jung, the ground of human psyche, that is the collective unconscious, is primordial, archaic, inherent and universal in its very nature. Talking about psychological

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heritage, as Joseph Henderson does, is then more adequate concept than cultural heritage (see Jung 1992). The cultural human history lives in human psyche, as one of its basic configuration. This ground, the collective unconscious, makes people psychologically alike, not identical. It refers to a common human psychical potentiality among people. It has to bear in mind that the collective unconscious, from Jungian perspective, does not mean that we have inherited our ancestors’ personal experiences. Talking about a heritage contained by our psyche does not mean that. The key word here is readiness or potential. We have inherited a certain readiness to experience what our ancestors have experienced by now in parallel situations we are encountering in our lives. This potential exists as “definitive forms” in human psyche, precisely as collective unconscious (Jung 2002, 42). It is there all the time, but in a “sleeping state” or in “non-experiencing form” prior to we are confronting our everyday life events in time and space that are capable in awaking what was “at sleep”. Functioning in this way, the collective unconscious can make our life easier by providing the “experiential hints” to be familiar with things we have not met before. In that manner, it has a capability to make our life difficult as well.

Christmas is an Expression of Collective Unconscious From Jungian perspective, myths and symbols are the expressions of a human psyche (Jung 2002, 6). He is writing that previous to a western civilization primarily the religious life channelled the expressive nature of a human psyche. Jung criticized that Protestantism has impoverished the symbols and myths of everyday spiritual life and compels people to look for them from elsewhere, for example from Eastern cultures. At the same time, the Catholic religion has channelled

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the collective unconscious into the certain religious rituals in too rigid and controlled way (Jung 2002, 7-8, 12-14). Jungian view on a lack of symbols in Christianity may be appropriate in general, but not in Christmas. The life around us, together with Christian symbols and tales, is a living evidence for the strength the Christmas even now has Western people to symbolize what belongs inherently into our psychic world. Christmas seems to be so effectual in this that Christmas time is visibly prolonged. It is difficult to find the reasons for this only from economics and successful marketing. They cannot account for instance why my neighbours are willingly without spending any extra money singing the old Christmas songs or pu�ing the traditional decorations into the windows already in November. Neither can they explain why churches are full of singing people when arranging the special Christmas song events before Christmas Day, though otherwise the popularity to take part to the regular ceremonies of the church has decreased. People even seem to need making Christmas time longer than it is now. The desire expressed by the traditional Christmas song, “could it be true that Christmas will continue forever” might become reality if it would be up to human hopes. In brief, Christmas time seems to comprise the plentiful symbolic behaviour models into which we can project our collective psychic potentials. Christmas symbols offer projections that imply that my personal being in the world is not any discrete individual existence but belongs to the living sphere, which all people share. Hence, Christmas period is able to make us more humans. We feel it experientially as more coherence, more balance, more togetherness, being more fully, what we are, and being like all people. Discussing all people really mean all people, explicitly the living as well as dead people who continue their living in the collective unconscious as our potential to be acquainted with this world there I am living right now.

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A fundamental Jungian idea is that a person is unable to experience directly that joint human history within her (Jung 2002, 42). Experiencing that is out of human abilities. We are not of that kind. This is the profound reason why people must discover the symbolic ways to u�er this core. As I maintained earlier, Christmas time is successful in providing the needed symbols to the people probably be�er than any other period in our civilized and highly rational culture can do. People can live through their collective potential in outstandingly satisfied way by the aid of Christmas symbolism. As understood in this way, the Christmas core is in fact not solely Christmas but more general human collective potential into which we do not have any straight experiential contact. Christmas core is one form of the collective unconscious of human psyche.

Christmas Allows Archetypal and Perceived Thinking To comprehend the interrelation between psyche and myths or cultural symbols more exactly, Jung was using the concept of archetype. He describes archetypes as primordial images (Jung 2002, 78) or pre-existent forms (Jung 2002, 43) or primordial types (Jung 2002, 5). Archetypes illustrate the content of the collective unconscious. Prominent feature of any psychological act, including rational thinking and planning, is that it always includes some archetypal form and therefore, as Jung (2002, 33) says, any psychological act “dates from a time when consciousness did not think, but only perceived.” This is an essential idea. Jung presents several archetypes, fundamentally, as many as there are typical situations in the history of human life (Jung, 2002, 48). I do not regard as important to set the question, what particular archetypes in Jungian sense the symbolic forms of Christmas time are able to activate and to

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let them presenting themselves. I believe that would be artificial and too commi�ed examination of the subject ma�er. My aim is to take a view that is more descriptive and give heuristic suggestions based on general Jungian position. My line of reasoning is that Christmas time allows us to think and act in archetypal way. It means relying more than usually during the year on perceived thinking without need to be rational and requiring explanations why to perform as we do (see Jung 2002, 33). If observing how people are behaving in Christmas time, rational understanding is almost useless. Those people whom for any reason need to avoid thinking by perceptions in themselves, are o�en wondering and rationalizing, how crazy, childish, and irrational otherwise normally behaving people can turn out to be. For the people who allow thinking also in perceived way, Christmas time reminds of a daydream. Another way to call Christmas thinking is creative imagination. For Jung (e.g. 1992, 39, 67; 2002, 48-49), dreams and active imagination are the most vital acts of consciousness, which make real the contact to the archetypes. However, this link always requires the option to project this sort of thinking or be�er say experiencing to cultural symbolism. Inability to experience directly the collective unconscious concerns also archetypes as the content of it. Christmas is, then, serving and supporting us in this projecting task. When approaching Christmas psychologically as I have done, two issues arise above all. The first is about rational and emotional experiencing and the value or emphasis put on them in our daily living. The second question focuses on the individual and collective quality of experiencing. The most interesting is to explore for the relation between these two issues. I have noticed that o�en rational and general experiential understanding, including collective, are put together,

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and emotional and individual experiencing together respectively. In my view, this is a substantial mistake. For me their relation is just the opposite: emotionally based understanding show how similar people are, and rationally based understanding is making us more unique individuals (see Perttula 2005, 120-133). The more a person relies in her experiential understanding on emotional or intuitive meanings, the more her being in-the-world and living here have the roots in what is familiar to all and which has a tie to a long time span in the past, also in evolutionary sense. This means not constructing our life or ourselves, but to content oneself to what before now is and trust that it belongs to my personal living here too, and that it means that my life is not individual life but I am living the life of a human. If a person relies predominantly on rational understanding, she feels the urge and the freedom to construct the world by her own acts. What follows is the subjective world indeed, which can be seen in western societies and in their weight on reflection and aims to control the life, as well as on living in realities which are constructed, and as such, hypothetical for us. A�ractive in rational way of thinking is its freedom to create. Rational thinking offers taking the infinite different perspectives to any phenomenon. Individualization is the cultural counterpart for this subjective freedom in conscious understanding. Christmas is the golden time for them who need, accept and are ready to give up the lack of restrictions available in their rational and subjectively constructive thinking. Christmas serves the exception in western culture to live in another way for some time. It does not offer any autonomy when it means some conscious space to modify and control or handle one’s own life. However, Christmas may offer another sort of freedom. To utilize the general thesis of humanistic psychology,

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this freedom is the chance “to become what you already are”. When humanistic psychology, for instance Abraham Maslow (1993) and Carl Rogers (1961), states that this sort of freedom reveals the individual nature of me, I am proposing here in Jungian spirit, that the heart of this freedom is not individual but essentially collective or generally human that presents itself a�er giving up the subjective autonomy to form and to construct. This requires relinquishing the reliance on the objectified certainty and individual control that rational thinking gives over living. One additional feature that characterizes the mainstream western culture is to become observed, and what is not observable should make of that kind. Things that remain unobservable are devalued. The accompanying property is the compulsion to be sure. What remains out of positive observations, is doomed to be unsure and therefore secondary or even meaningless. Like making life observable, for example by ever-growing medicalization and evaluating procedures, means for becoming certain are also many. They cover rational reflection, creating new realities and perspectives by conscious acts, focussing on the future by planning, anticipating, visioning and aiming, creating actively the discursive realities, being effective, behaving rationally, providing arguments, searching for an individual profile to one’s life, and presenting impressions and regulating them by purpose. It is looking like that Christmas, if being a subject, would laugh to this all. Furthermore, Christmas would smile if not laugh loud to those people who equates the traditional scientific worldview and the personal human worldview, and take the former as a pa�ern to the la�er. Western culture in general sets on to solve problems, to give answers and to talk. Being silent, being present, being ready to listen people or the life in general which is already around are hard to tolerate and esteem. There is a lot

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of empty conversation in our culture about the significance of taking care of each other, shared responsibility, social capital, and other corresponding antithesis for current cultural characteristics. From Jungian outlook, our middle-of-the-road culture gives only occasional options for archetypes to communicate themselves. Christmas time is the apparent exception in this. It is not difficult to presume that the more western culture is going on to develop in the course described above, the more meaningful Christmas will become. For the people who pretend to be completely rational, which means being literally children of the individualized reflective culture, this may be threatening and as such, inconvenient for them to admit. In Christmas time, they need some additional strength to fight experientially against silly, funny, irrational, and childish people perceived in their private and public surroundings. They frequently want to have whether personal or more shared talks how to live those days, how to survive in this anomalous period as a person that they have learned to be. This shows unavoidably that Christmas has meaning for them too in our culture. As I understand the special meaning that Christmas entails and why it comes every year equally fresh, the focal reason is the symbolic power it has. For Jung (1992), being symbolic means that what is symbolic has also other meanings except what is obvious, concrete and directly accessible.

Christmas Forms Holistic Symbolic Field I think it is not necessary to distinct Christmas into specific symbols. Of course, it is achievable for analytic purposes but I consider more appropriate to talk about Christmas as one coherent “symbolic field”. My assumption is that this sym-

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bolic entirety that Christmas forms, is the finest account for its strength when adopted the psychological stance. If there would be only disconnect symbols without obvious relations between them, the symbolic capacity could easily vanish and be deconstructed by purpose. If using Jungian archetypal language, the symbols of Christmas makes possible for various archetypes to display themselves, and possibly it is acceptable to propose that this can happen even at the same time. It is not a ma�er of any definite archetype but rather the complex of archetypes to which Christmas is able to give symbolic life to live through. The symbolic domain of Christmas is rich and covers practically the full days and everything they comprise during Christmas period. There are concrete symbols like special songs, decorations and lights, Christmas tree, Santa Claus with his wife and brownies, presents, plentiful of food, and national declaring the Christmas peace. In addition to the concrete symbols, there are several more concealed but still apparent symbols of Christmas spirit. They contain being sympathetic to everybody, regarding giving as more valuable than ge�ing, forge�ing all rush a�er everything is prepared, enjoying to do nothing, receptive a�itude towards myths, miracles and holiness including Christianity and its myth of the Christ-child birth, permission to have intensive emotions, recalling and actively respecting the dead relatives and friends, just being together. The power of the total symbolic field becomes even more obvious when noticing the situation the nature gives to it. I mean darkness. It forms the particular background for the symbolic field by providing the chance to go along to and adopt this symbolic life and further to concentrate on that without any apparent disturbing effect on itself. Darkness is the best ‘background’ that is possible to imagine for the

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symbolic field of Christmas, which contrasts so undoubtedly with the everyday life and its values outside of Christmas. Psychologically, still in accordance with Jung, darkness means concretely that we are unable to observe what is beyond our nearest surrounding. Darkness forces or at least directs our a�ention to what is near to us, including ourselves. It is fascinating how people make this contrast effect even stronger by using ever more lights indoors, for instance on their windows, but also by taking more and more candles to the graves. This kind of behaviour shows concretely what are the places and objects that people need to concentrate. By illuminating them, people show their significance. When they give light into something, other things behind the brightness remain into more black, from where it is ever more difficult to notice them due to the contrast effect that the self-made light makes between what is enlightened and what is not. Understood like this, darkness is noteworthy a�ribute of the symbolic field of Christmas. Darkness is the context of the symbolic field but if stating so, it is crucial to add that without this context, the symbolic field would be completely different. It is impossible to imagine, that Christmas could be during the summer time. Particularly crazy thought this is in northern Europe, where the natural contrast of daylight during the year is so remarkable and determinative it really is. In this sense, the symbolic field and its context in nature go together and maintain each other. This is happening in Christmas time and in other periods of the year as well.

Christmas is a Chance to Psychical Development Jung made the distinction between the concepts of ego and self. Ego is representing in human psyche everything that is conscious (see Jung 1992, 161). It brings the a�itude, “I am thinking” and the interrelated sense that personal conscious

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acts are forming the centre of my psychic life. A�er previous discussing about the unconscious life and its collective quality, it is evident that from Jungian view the ego is only the centre of the conscious psychic life, not of the psyche as a whole. The way of living that is grounding to ego in psychic sense, is rational, subjectively constructive, aiming for conviction and control, making things observable; features I linked with mainstream western culture of our era. By applying to Jung’s concept, our culture is ego culture. To portray the total of the psyche, Jung introduced the concept of self. Self is in fact more broad concept in Jung’s theory than mere entirety of the psyche. It is the nucleus or the centre of the psyche, as well as one archetype within many (Jung 2002, 186-187). As the archetype, self means for a person to grow to be psychically as something what she by now is. Jung states, that in everyday life, this needs time because it requires that all other structural parts of the psyche have had possibilities to grow in their full condition and have done it in real. When this has realized, self can evolve. For Jung, self is not any new invention or structural creation, but it exists from birth as a potential in human psyche as every archetype does. What happens concretely when self has option to evolve is ostensibly paradoxical but comprehensible from Jungian view. A person is turning more away from the outer world and the positive observations it offers, and focussing more intensively than before on her inner world. What is paradoxical in this, is that what she founds and is able to perceive now, is not anything purely subjective or individual but some common, shared, historical or collective. The precondition of this change of a�entive direction a person takes is the confidence on emotional, intuitive, outwardly irrational experiential symbolized evidence. The same alteration has also a contextual precondition, namely that the cultural environment is providing some mythical ground to which

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a person can project the symbols presenting her collective unconscious. Jung used the term individuation to depict the situation when self has fully evolved in psyche (see Jung 1992, 160-167; 2002, 275). In real life, individuation is not a state or a result, but more a direction for the psychical development to go on in a favourable manner. Although the individuation process requires turning a�ention more to inner non-rational experiencing, Jung emphasizes that self is not the same than unconscious but specifically the integration of the unconscious into consciousness (see Jung 2002, 40). This is natural when keeping in mind that self is the concept to articulate the whole psyche, not only the structure of unconscious. It is interesting to contrast the individuation process governed by gradual evolving the self to the individualization process, which has taken place in western cultures. Based on what I have presented in this article, their dissimilarity is evident. The individualization is mainly cultural process, which needs emphasizing, and valuing of subjective effort and conscious will above all. It is a social norm, which is leading the requirement to become individual. The result of individualization is, within the given social frames, consciously constructed view of who I am. The individuation is inherent process, which requires associating unconscious and conscious thinking together as one psychic entirety. What follows from individuation is a person who is successful in living through the potentials that already exist in her psychic structure. The outcome of the individuation is a person who accepts that she does not grow in privacy or by being detached. Instead, she believes that her individual disposition means becoming a “generally human”. She builds her subjective unique character into this collective human ground, which is not socially constructed during our time but constituted without any social effort during for much longer period.

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Consequently, Jung claims that our psychic development is dependent on how and how fully we let self to be emerged in the psyche. As Marie-Louise von Franz writes in Jungian spirit, the most critical in this process is the willingness to listen carefully to self’s messages, which are symbolic (see Jung 2002, 162). They are symbolic because a direct experiencing of the archetypes is impossible. If accepting my claim that Christmas is a treasury of myths and symbols, and that its symbols form a certain holistic symbolic field, the conclusion is that Christmas is extraordinary beneficial period for supporting our psychic development. Christmas and the symbolic manifestations of our collective unconscious are so to say, speaking the same language. Pu�ing the same idea in other way, a person is longing for Christmas because during that time, she can fulfil her potentials to develop psychologically. It implies the need, which she does not have to learn but that is already there to seek out the right conditions of outer world. Being receptive to herself, and in particular to self in Jungian sense, makes a person to become a “Christmas lover”. Christmas as a symbolic field is supporting people to discover the contact into their collective and non-learned unconscious, which ultimately provides chances to pay a�ention what my self, my psychic whole truly wants.

Epilogue I return once more, the last time, to the symbolic field Christmas presents us. I was talking previously about darkness, the self-made lights and the contrast they together form as a contextual part of the symbolic field. One additional aspect of the same context is snow, natural white in otherwise natural black landscape. As a part of this symbolic context, I regard snow as concurrently light-

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ning and covering gi� of the nature. It gives light in the air and on the ground, and intensifies the contrast which darkness creates into the environment. On the other hand, snowing and snow as a final “product” of snowing on the ground have important covering effect too. In the air, snow is paying our a�ention and makes the distance achievable to perceive concretely shorter. On the ground, snow is covering everything without a human a�empt to remove it away. Symbolically the most appealing in snowing is its way to appear as a gi�. Snow is the present that nature gives for the people without demanding anything back. Snow is like a decoration in and for the darkness. When Jung describes how self can emerge in human psyche, he is stressing the equilibrium between the opposites, along with classic psychodynamic tradition. For Jung (1989, 138), the life is inherently composed of opposites. It concerns any single archetype too. Otherwise, if a person fails in this balancing task, the potentials existing in her psyche remain hidden and the structures of the psyche remain distinct to each other respectively. It prohibits the psychic development inherent us. Christmas symbolism includes several features, which virtually persuade us to find the links between the opposites and perceive them as belonging together. Coincidental black and white which nature normally provides to the Christmas symbolic field in northern regions, is a concrete example of this. If a person is willing to return to the perceived thinking in Christmas time, she may identify the analogous situation inside herself and project one’s archetypal opposites against the opposites that are prevailing in the symbolic field of Christmas time. Besides the contrast of black (darkness) and white (snow and self-made enlightening), the contrast between the myth of the spiritual birth and recalling the death people in cemeteries is a good example of symbolism that offers, when reasoning in the Jungian spirit, a chance for the

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evolving self, and therefore, for the psychic development in Christmas time.

References Brentano, Franz 1995. Psychology from an Empirical Standpoint. Second Edition of English Translation. Translated by Antos Rancurello, D. B. Terrell & Linda McAlister. Original title, Psychologie vom empirischen Standpunkte, published in 1874. Routledge. London. Crain, William 2005. Theories of Development. Concepts and Applications. Fi�h Edition. Pearson, Prentice Hall. New Jersey. Ewen, Robert 1988. An Introduction to Theories of Personality. Third Edition. Lawrence Erlbaum. New Jersey. Jung, Carl Gustav 2002. The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious. Second edition. Translated by R.F.C. Hull. The Collected Works of C.G. Jung, Volume 9, Part 1, including essays wri�en from 1933 onwards. First published in England in 1959. Routledge. London. Jung, Carl Gustav 2001. Unia, ajatuksia, muistikuvia. Suomentanut Mirja Rutanen. Saksankielinen alkuteos Erinnerungen Träume Gedanken, 1961 (edited by Aniela Jaffé). WSOY. Helsinki. Jung, Carl Gustav 1989. Modern Man in Search of a Soul. Translated by W.S. Dell & C.F. Baynes. First published in 1933. Ark, Routledge. London. Jung, Carl Gustav & von Franz, Marie-Louise & Henderson, Joseph & Jacobi, Jolande & Jaffé, Aniela 1992. Symbolit. Piilotajunnan kieli. Suomentanut Mirja Rutanen. Englanninkielinen alkuteos Man and His Symbols, 1964. Otava. Helsinki. Maslow, Abraham 1993. The Farther Reaches of Human Nature. Penguin. Arkana. Per�ula, Juha 2005. Kokemus ja kokemuksen tutkimus: fenome-

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nologisen erityistieteen tieteenteoria. Teoksessa Juha Per�ula ja Timo Latomaa (toim.): Kokemuksen tutkimus. Merkitys, tulkinta, ymmärtäminen. Dialogia. Helsinki, 115-162. Pietikäinen Pe�eri 1999. C.G. Jung and the Psychology of Symbolic Forms. The Finnish Academy of Science and Le�ers. Humaniora, 299. Rogers, Carl 1961. On Becoming a Person: A Therapist’s View of Psychotherapy. Houghton Mifflin. Boston.

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A New Perspective on the Experience Economy – Meaningful Experiences

Albert Boswijk , Thomas Thijssen and Ed Peelen © The European Centre for the Experience Economy, the Netherlands [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]

Introduction

The experience economy is about more than just offering a staged se�ing for an experience. The point of departure needs to be the individual’s personal experience: his or her everyday world and societal context. In linking personal, social, cultural and economic experiences and making them manageable in practice, A New Perspective on the Experience Economy takes the current state of knowledge in this field a step further. The authors approach the experience economy from the perspective of the individual and his or her potential program of giving meaning to his or her life. We are returning to a human scale in our thought and actions and shi� the focus from ‘the supplier’ and ‘the organisation’ to ‘the individual ’. This article describes the foundations of meaningful experiences, the particular design principles that apply to them and how you can bring the whole concept—from the idea to the reality—

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into actual practice. The experience economy is more than just ’excite me’, ‘feed me’ and ‘entertain me’. Businesses and organisations can play a meaningful role in helping the individual to find his or her own way. At the European Centre for the Experience Economy, as part of the PrimaVera Research Program of the University of Amsterdam we are developing new theories on the Experience Economy through research and collective learning in a community of practice. In this paper we wish to share our early notions of our new perspective on the Experience Economy, where human experience is the starting point of our inquiry. The main questions we will discuss in the sections of this paper are: 1) What is the nature of human experience? 2) What is the process of creating meaning? 3) What are the characteristics of meaningful experiences? 4) What are the starting points in bringing about meaningful experiences? 5) What are the design principles of meaningful experiences 6) What are the stages in designing and developing meaningful experiences?

Human Experiences In this section we discuss the nature of personal, social/ cultural and economic experiences and lay the foundation for the new perspective on the Experience Economy. Experiences are personal We asked over 300 people, participants in our executive training programs, which experiences actually changed their lives and will never forget. The answers are all in the personal sphere and are turning points in their lives. The answers deal with life and death issues, the loss of beloved ones, the celebration of birth, the first encounter with your great love,

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the success of your first job, deep friendships and the end of an intense relationship. If we take a closer look and analyse these experiences, we can speak of very personal experiences which have to do with encountering yourself, seeing yourself in the mirror in the context of a love relationship, experiences that change your perspective on life considerably. These personal experiences determine the value that we a�ach to life. They determine which motives are relevant for us and give our life direction and meaning. If we ask the same groups of participants the question; which experiences, in a context with other people, will you never forget in your life? The answers are like celebrating a sports championship, meeting people in another culture, travelling, concerts, cultural manifestations, extreme performance of a work team, the fall of the Berlin wall, 9/11, working and studying abroad. All these experiences are both personal and social. These are deep experiences and they have created substantial meaning in the lives of the people engaged. If we ask the third question: which are experiences that you will never forget in your life where you actually paid for? We receive answers that have to do with the first time flying in an airplane, my first car, my first house, special holidays, sport games, wedding party. All these experiences are personal, some more or less social and cultural and have to do with discovery, adventures and new initiatives. The common denominator in these experiences is that they have a high emotional impact, they have to do with letting go of old pa�erns, and discovering new frontiers, new directions and focus are determined and there is an increase of energy. Keleman (1974) states; excitement is what bonds us to the world.

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The Process of Creating Meaning Creating meaning can be described as a process, starting as perception through the senses (see, hear, smell, touch, taste) to emotions leading to an ‘Erlebnis’. This Erlebnis’ adds to ‘Erfahrung’ and subsequently to ‘meaning’. Erlebnis can be defined as a subset of Erfahrung. Ronald Laing (1967) even defines humans as the sum total of Erfahrung. It deals with issues like learning and consciousness and the question what an Erlebnis means in a particular situation and context. The individual poses questions as: how and why do I end up in this situation? How do I deal with the situation? What does it say about me? Do I want this Erlebnis? How do I want to change myself or the situation? To sum total of a series of Erlebnis, good or bad feed into Erfahrung, good or bad. Reflection on the cumulative experiences leads to personal insight and possibly the means to personal change or transformation. We define human experience as follows (Boswijk et al 2005): Experience in the sense of Erfahrung is a continuous interactive process of doing and undergoing, of action and reflection, from cause to consequence, that provides meaning to the individual in several contexts of his life. Experience as Erfahrung causes the individual to change the perspective on self and/or the world around him. This definition builds on theory from John Dewey (1938) and Anna Snel (2005).

Characteristics of Meaningful Experiences What do we need to do in order to bring about a meaningful experience in a commercial se�ing? In answering this question, it is important that one recognises that experience is essentially a form of behaviour. It is a process in which feeling plays an important role. The logic of emotions determines

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how an individual deals with both his or her environment and the people in it, while looking for experiences that will give meaning to his or her life. In other words, experiences are not static quantities like products. Experiences occur in a process in which interactions take place in a certain se�ing – whether or not a physical one – between the individual and other people, including perhaps the offering party, which can be an economic party. This makes experiences, just like services, intangible. We describe the characteristics of an experience based on an extensive literature study (Boswijk et al., 2005) from the perspective of the individual. To these characteristics, we add the characteristics of ‘flow’ (Csikszentmihalyi 1990). This results in the following set of characteristics: 1. There is a heightened concentration and focus, involving all one’s senses. 2. One’s sense of time is altered. 3. One is touched emotionally. 4. The process is unique for the individual and has intrinsic value. 5. There is contact with the ‘raw stuff’, the real thing. 6. One does something and undergoes something. 7. There is a sense of playfulness. 8. One has a feeling of having control of the situation. 9. There is a balance between the challenge and one’s own capacities. 10. There is a clear goal. Every meaningful experience must satisfy all of these characteristics, and that is no easy task. The meeting between the individual – or group of individuals – and the company takes place in a particular experience se�ing, both physical and virtual. That is the environment in which the interaction can take place between the individual and the offering

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party (or parties). At this time we are in the completion stage of empirical research testing the above characteristics. The early results confirm their validity (Thijssen, Peelen & Bink 2006).

Starting Points in Bringing about Meaningful Experiences The new perspective on the experience economy has its point of departure in the individual’s desires, motives and hidden programme of learning. The fundamental principles for creating a meaningful experience are logically based on the following points of departure: 1. Think about things from the psychodynamic perspective of the individual and try to contribute to his or her possibilities. The individual experiences an individualised treatment that means something to him or her. 2. The individual can determine for him or herself how much control he or she wants in the process of co-creation. The offering party focuses on the process of giving meaning to the individual customer, despite the networks and mass character of other customers. This way, the value creation takes place in the individual. 3. Consider the customer as a ‘guest’ and create a culture of hospitality. 4. Break through any dogmas and pre-existing notions if necessary; change the paradigm. Solve any seemingly irresolvable dilemmas.

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5. The creation of the meaningful-experience se�ing takes place in an interactive process between the individual and the offering party. 6. Show respect.

Stages in the Process of Developing and Realizing Meaningful-Experience Concepts The five stages in the co-creation of experience The process of experience (co-) creation involves five essential stages that have to do with: 1. The creativity and the innovative capacity in creating a vision on moments of contact and meaningful-experience se�ings and the concepts that are developed as a result of these; 2. The actual specification of meaningful-experience se�ings and market propositions to interested target groups: propositions for bonding and entering into a relationship with customers and for distinguishing yourself in the market in doing so; 3. The information technology that is necessary to enable and support the meaningful-experience se�ings. Which architecture is required for this? Where does the value creation actually take place? Does the organisation possess the necessary core competencies for developing and maintaining the architecture? 4. Finding and training the people who need to do the work. Are the employees capable of developing the behaviour required for making the event a truly mean-

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ingful experience for visitors, guests, users, or customers? How do you train people? Do they have the right skills? Are they independent, flexible and capable of entrepreneurship? Are they able to make contact with people? People are the absolute critical factor in bringing about a meaningful experience. 5. Determining the economic perspective: What is the business model? What is going to be earning us the money? Brilliant concepts and ideas sometimes prove to be unfruitful. It is advised to go through these stages every time. Is the concept that turned out to be successful in the recent past going to be successful in the future as well? How do we keep the experience proposition fresh and a�ractive? Which factors force us to develop new concepts together with custom-

1. Innovation and learning capabilities

4. People & Culture 6. How to develop ourworkers and our culture to support our experience strategy?

Vision &

8. How do we innovate? How do we create new environments, new networks, partners and strategic meeting points

5. The businessmodel 9. Profitzones 10. Manage the Experience scorecard

3. Internal processes and core competencies 3. Which processes create opportunities for experiences? (DART) 4. Which core competencies are necessary? 5. What kind of architecture is needed for creation of experience?

Strategy

2. Experiences 1. Which experience environments? Physical, virtual, location hierarchy 2. Which opportunities there are to cocreation and self determination?

Figure 1. The Stages of experience (co)-creation.

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Table 1. Keypoints in creation of meaning. Ten characteristics

Six starting points

Five stages of development

1. There is heightened concentration and focus. All five senses are engaged.

1. The individual experiences an individualised treatment of meaning.

1. Innovation and creativity in developing experience concepts.

2. One’s sense of time is altered.

2. Value creation takes place in the individual. The supplier focuses on this process of giving meaning.

2. Development of actual meaningfulexperience propositions; these involve co-creation and self-direction.

3. One is touched emotionally.

3. The customer is considered a ‘guest’ within a culture of hospitality.

3. Internal processes and core competencies.

4. The process is unique for the individual.

4. Solve any seemingly irresolvable dilemmas.

4. The people and culture who have to put the chosen experience strategy into practice.

5. There is contact with the ‘raw stuff’, the real thing.

5. The creation of an experience se�ing is an interactive process between the individual and the supplier.

5. The business model with which the money is earned.

6. One both does and undergoes something.

6. Respect

7. There is an element of playfulness (flow). 8. One has the feeling of being in control of the situation. 9. There is a balance between the challenge and one’s own capacities. 10. There is a clear goal.

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ers and users and fellow suppliers? We will be discussing the first two stages in greater detail below. A number of things are made clear in Table 1. Here we will highlight the first and second stage of experience co-creation: The First stage: innovation, creative and learning capacity The first stage of meaningful-experience creation is to conceive of and bring about new concepts in a creative way. Le�ing go of existing propositions and traditional ways of thinking is difficult in a business se�ing. At the same time, it is important to learn from earlier meaningful experiences. What didn’t work, what did work and why? Our own meaningful experiences, the logic that dominates our thinking, as well as that of people around us, can form an obstacle for our mental process when we face a problem or a challenge. By mentally distancing yourself and focusing your a�ention on something else for a while, you can give your unconscious thought processes free rein. Your intuition will then lead to creative solutions. Characteristic for this is that other contexts ‘between which no connections had previously existed, are flashed together’ (De Bruyn & De Bruyn 1999). The invention of Velcro, for example, resulted from someone’s observation of the way burs clung to the fabric of his clothes. Ideas ultimately need to converge, to come together in the design of a meaningful experience. This is a generally cohesive description of the meaningful experience that is to be co-created, which will bring about a transformation in the way one thinks, relates and acts. A shi� takes place in the way people view certain things or people in life and in what we value. Their relationship with friends, family or acquaintances can change as a result. They will adjust their behaviour. A dinner prepared by the students of Jamie Oliver at Fi�een in London – and now in Amsterdam as well

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– can make you aware of how social motives could lead a well known chef to help disadvantaged young people to develop themselves into true masters in the kitchen and the restaurant. LEGO buffs who were able to indulge themselves for an entire day at a fair organised by a community of users, able to build all their designs, increased their self-respect and saw their dream come true. There is a brilliant architect hiding in them a�er all! Thanks to the dinner that ING Private Banking organised, the entrepreneurs who had to sell their business were emotionally be�er able to take leave of their ‘baby’ and became enthusiastic for the world that is now beckoning them. The Second stage: the creation of a meaningful-experience se�ing First of all, any moments of contact that could take place between the offering party and the consumer need to be identified. These should also include the moments of contact among customers themselves and those between related offering parties. Which meaningful-experience se�ings can we think of, where can possibilities for dialogue with the consumer be created, and where can access to the offering party be created for the consumer? How transparent is your company for the consumer? Where does this make sense, and where not? To what extent are guests and clients able to direct their own experience themselves? Do we know the living conditions and the fundamental needs of potentially interested customers? Which groups will appreciate which kinds of bonds and relationships? Take notice: the concept of an experience se�ing can mean different things and be interpreted in different ways. For Pine and Gilmore (1999), it means a physical and/or virtual environment in which entertainment is important, but where educational, escapist, aesthetic and design aspects

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also play a role. Their perspective is one in which the experience of the environment is staged and directed as fully as possible. Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) talk about an experience environment as a space that enables dialogue, access and transparency – in fact a process of co-creation – in which both parties are more or less in a balance at the helm. This is a radically different view, especially in terms of who is controlling the experience. Despite this difference, both Pine and Gilmore (1999) and Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) focus on how to engage the customer and the consumer in a different way with the company. With them, the perspective of the company remains at the forefront. Later we will see that there are forms where the community of customers and fans will determine what the company has to do. The Physical se�ing There are countless examples of physical se�ings that have made an enormous impact on the visitor or guest as a result of their design and architecture. An interesting book in this regard is Christopher Alexander’s The Timeless Way of Building (1979). The title says it all. We are all familiar with buildings that are impressive and special due to their architectural beauty. In ancient times, the Greeks and the Romans were aware of the impact of space and the three-dimensional effect on humans. The way they built temples illustrates that. Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw and La Scala in Milan also demonstrate the kind of effect a building or an environment can have on its visitors or the concerts held there. The quality of the design, the reputation of the musicians performing there, the traditions – everything contributes towards making such a building a historical monument. In the retail world, advanced techniques are being used to influence the senses and, with them, the purchasing behaviour of the public. One trend is to place new retail concepts

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in historic buildings. Several examples of this can be found, like the Apple Store on Regent Street in London or in an old post office in New York’s Soho and Nike Town on London’s Oxford Circus. The Prada shops in New York are another example. Designed by the architect Rem Koolhaas, they are dominated by design, architecture and the experience of space. You literally need to look for the products. Yet another example is the Lairesse Apotheek in Amsterdam. This pharmacy was designed by the chemist/owner herself, in collaboration with Concrete Architects. The design has already won three international prizes, although there has not been any recognition from the branch itself as yet. There is a story and a philosophy behind the design: allopathic medicines are presented on an equal basis with homeopathic medicines, all cabinets are transparent, the preparation room is transparent and the floor is made of a special material into which leaves from the ‘tree of life’ have been pressed. The trunk of this tree is positioned symbolically in the middle of the pharmacy: its sap stands for the capability of medicines to prolong one’s life. The image of the pharmacy is intriguing, but it is only by entering into the pharmacy itself that you can really experience this remarkable se�ing. The Virtual se�ing Besides the physical se�ing, the virtual se�ing has also greatly increased in importance. For large stretches of time each day, people communicate with each other via the Internet. The Internet has made it possible for ‘everyone’ to communicate with ‘everyone’. In their book Blur (1998), Stan Davis and Christopher Meyer describe ten criteria that a virtual environment and an offering on the Internet should take into account. These features are still valid today. The third, fourth and fi�h stages of experience co-creation follow from the first and second stage and include the design and the development of the internal processes and

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core competencies (stage 3) aligning with the experience concept developed, the engagement of the people in the organisation and the culture (stage 4) to put the chosen strategy into practice. And last but not least, address the business model and define how money is earned (stage 5). Any experience concept will fail if the business model is not considered beforehand and continuously adjusted as learning proceeds in time.

Design Principles In terms of the principles of design, we will start by looking at the first-generation experience economy. Second, we will be treating the principles of experience co-creation. After that, we will be briefly discussing communities that arise organically where there is li�le if any directing going on by an offering party. The degree of directing and thus of control by the offering party decreases the more things are designed spontaneously and organically. In order to be able to determine the principles for designing meaningful experiences, we need to know how we can impact the individual in whatever moves him or her. Theatre science offers a number of good starting points in this regard. Design principles for first-generation experience se�ings Here we will be considering five simple principles for firstgeneration experience se�ings (Pine & Gilmore 1999). 1. Theme Does the concept have a theme? Does it have a story? Can the visitor clearly recognise what it is about? Does it have a history and a ‘storyline’? Is there a philosophy behind it that visitors and customers can clearly recog-

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nise? How do we know this? During a recent tour of shop ‘experiences’ we asked participants if they could identify a theme for each shop. ‘Crust and Crumbs’ on Haarlemmerstraat in Amsterdam is all about authentic breads with a crispy crust. Manfred Meeuwig’s ‘Check Your Oil’ is about olive oil from casks and the authenticity of oils and seasonings. The theme of the exclusive lingerie shop ‘Marlies Dekkers’ on Wi�e de Withstraat in Ro�erdam is: ‘In the future everybody will be famous for 15 minutes’. Other good examples are ‘De E�eling’, with the theme of fairytales, and ‘Autostadt’, with mobility and cars as its theme. 2. Harmony Are all the impressions that a visitor gets harmonized by means of positive cues? At the Lairesse Apotheek in Amsterdam, all impressions are synchronic with each other. You can experience this pharmacy’s vision through your senses as it were. Quite o�en, however, impressions are not in harmony with each other and cues may even have a negative impact. 3.Eliminate negative cues Even an otherwise beautiful environment can o�en leave a negative impression on the visitor. It could be overfull ashtrays or boxes stacked up in a stunning lobby. If you start paying a�ention to them, you can discover distracting elements in practically any environment. 4. Memorabilia Are there things that you would like to take home with you to remind you of your visit and commemorate the experience? We all know the li�le souvenir shops in tourist destinations, but also the museum shops where

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you can buy reproductions, cards and books that can be lasting keepsakes. Most museums and amusement parks, such as Disney, lead you past this kind of shop. Naturally this is also possible on a qualitatively higher level, whereby visitors are given (or can buy) meaningful souvenir that they will use for a long time. (Think of Pine and Gilmore’s definition of a memorable experience.) 5. Engage all five senses Many experience se�ings are based on visual impressions. The rest of the senses o�en remain unengaged. We have already discussed the importance of the sense of smell. Automobile manufacturers have special experts who make sure a new car smells just right. When Porsche switched from an air-cooled motor to a water-cooled one, they received a tremendous number of complaints. What was the ma�er? The familiar Porsche sound had disappeared. Porsche worked with might and man to develop a new exhaust system that sounded as much as possible like the familiar old one. These five principles pertaining to the first-generation ‘experience economy’ offer simple instruments with which physical experience se�ings can be tested. From our experience with the second generation, we can add a sixth principle to this group: 6. Naturalness: one whole The whole concept must make a natural and authentic impression. Some spaces seem as if they were merely thrown together and therefore feel uncomfortable. The entire concept should give you the feeling that you are welcome; all the various elements should feel right together.

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We have given a lot of a�ention to the rational elements in terms of creating an experience se�ing. But what really counts is obviously the feeling we have about the whole. Design principles for second-generation experience se�ings In the case of second-generation experience se�ings, we can speak of experience co-creation. The Principle of co-creation In all phases in the development and realisation the meaningful-experience concept, the customer’s contribution is leading. The idea of co-creation not only needs to be evident within the experience se�ing ultimately created, but also during its conception and development. We have already abandoned the idea that it’s the supplier who decides what the customer wants. The conviction that customers are unable to indicate what they want and are therefore of limited value in developing (breakthrough) innovations has been rejected. People are the directors of their own lives and can to a certain extent say what they want. But it’s too much to expect them to be able to make the translation for the ‘producer’ in advance by telling them what things they should initiate. Developing an innovation or an experience concept involves a process of thinking, doing and reflecting. Both parties can certainly work together in this process, and they will book more success through their collaboration than either one could do individually. Important in this regard are four building blocks that we find in the work of Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004). They speak of the DART principle: 1. Dialogue Dialogue means interactivity, being engaged with each other and listening to each other. Both parties (supplier and customer) intend to accomplish something. It also

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means that a�ention is given to the interests of both parties. This requires both a location in which the dialogue can take place and a number of rules with which both parties must comply in order to be able to hold a useful dialogue. The principle of ‘learning by sharing’ holds here: the company learns through the dialogue with the customer and vice versa. 2. Access The traditional focus for a company has been the transfer of ownership from the supplier to the customer. The supplier creates a valuable product and, by means of a transaction, the customer gets the product. The customer is increasingly interested in the experience of the product and not in owning it (see Ri�in’s The Age of Access, 2000, Chapter One). Prahalad and Ramaswamy (2004) argue for separating having access to a product or service from owning it. You can achieve reach and access by making information available and by providing instruments that regulate the access to that information. At any given moment while the sailboat you ordered is being built, you can see how far along the builders are and even intervene if you would prefer to have things done differently (www.summersethouseboats.com). Telebanking offers you a limited access to the bank – that is to say, to your own account. You could imagine that you can gain access to a certain lifestyle. You don’t want to drive just one car of a certain brand, but rather a number of cars, from the most expensive to an MPV that you could drive on rugged terrain. Access means that being able to get information that is relevant to you, simply and easily. You could easily and readily consult a doctor online or by telephone, for example. This could have a preventative ef-

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fect: you adapt your behaviour before you become ill or unhealthy. In India, farmers can show the results of their harvest via web cams and the Internet. Based on the images they show, they can then obtain the proper pesticides and won’t simply have to experiment. 3. Risk assessment Risk here means the risk that the consumer runs. We have become accustomed to marketing communication only presenting the advantages of products and services. It is not yet common that also the disadvantages are presented in all honesty. But that is something that belongs to the principle of co-creation. Risk assessment is an important theme in co-creation relationships. Risk assessment also has to do with the risks that the company runs. Lego encountered the following problem. Communities of Lego consumers developed specific so�ware for the operating system of Mind Storm Robotics. As it turned out, their so�ware was be�er than the one Lego itself had developed. So the key question was who was ultimately responsible for that product that was developed? And what about the patent? This presents a complicated legal dilemma. 4. Transparency In the past, companies have profited from the disparity between what the company knows and what the consumer knows. This disparity has been melting away in recent years like snow in summer. Socially responsible entrepreneurship, openness and transparency are requirements of modern business. There are even symbolic examples of this. Volkswagen built a transparent factory in Dresden, where its Phaeton is manufactured.

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So-called ‘genius bars’ have been built in the new Apple Stores: the technicians help you to solve your problems; the back office turns into the front office and you can actually see just how the workplace works. These building blocks must be seen in combination with each other. Value creation no longer takes place within the company: value is created in the individual. Design principles for communities: A third generation? With the advent of the Internet and the possibilities it offers we see a huge rise in the number of spontaneous communities of people who find each other according to an interest they have in common. That could be anything. Some communities revolve around the use of certain products others have to do with hobbies, while still others are concerned with learning se�ings. Communities are both physical and virtual. A Google search will turn up an overwhelming number of communities. A few examples from the many Lego communities: Club Bionicle, Lego Treinen Club, Lego Star Wars Club, Michel’s Lego Club, Southern California LEGO Train Club, De Bouwsteen Lego Club, Play On! Lego World is an annual, four-day event in Zwolle organised by De Bouwsteen Lego Club, an independent organisation of Lego builders and collectors (see the film on the DVD). It is the largest Lego event in the world that is not organised by Lego itself. The promotion is done by Foxkids and Intertoys takes care of the ticket sales. In return, those companies are given a sales point at the event. The trade-fair venue De IJsselhallen is made available for a special price. The Dutch army takes care of the security and the general and technical support services. The catering is outsourced. Volunteers from ‘De Bouwsteen’ direct and implement the event. The Lego company itself plays only a modest role: it provides hundreds of thousands of Lego pieces and a truck

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with the newest models, along with the historical Lego models. The management also devotes time to the event. Each year there are more than 40,000 visitors who pay an entrance fee of about €12.50 and buy food, beverages, and Lego products there. Traders (collectors) have stands on a limited scale, for which they pay a fee. The interesting thing about Lego World is that this meaningful experience is the initiative of an independent club and that Lego merely plays a facilitating and supporting role, with clear agreements being made about the use of the Lego name. Lego has its hands full (sometimes also legally) with such initiatives. In fact the communities do what Lego itself promotes. They learn, develop, discover and build things themselves, and then of course there are also initiatives that have to do with the identity of Lego itself. In the following section, we will be taking a closer look at the development of a community from a business perspective.

Conclusions The development of meaningful-experience concepts cannot take place without the direct participation of the (potential) customer. Generally speaking, a very large percentage of new innovations will fail (Cooper 1987). Much capital is destroyed because companies invest for too long in unsuccessful ideas and concepts. Such waste can be avoided if the potential customer is directly involved from the very beginning. Merely surveying these customers will not provide sufficient certainty. Time and again, the intentions of those surveyed turn out to be different from their actual behaviour. Measuring actual behaviour is therefore clearly preferable. If the experience is not meaningful upon a customer’s first visit or a�er a number of repeat visits, the concept can

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be dropped at an early stage. That way, major investments in concept development and marketing can be avoided. If the concept is demonstrably appealing, a quick and profitable rollout is a feasible possibility – provided the company establishes itself at the right locations. Physical meaningfulexperience concepts are bound to a location. The choice of location must therefore be made carefully. In this paper, the emphasis lay on how we can develop and help bring about meaningful experiences and what this means for one’s own organisation. Just like individuals, organisations find themselves in an area of tension between the act of discovering – looking outside – and the act of organising and bringing something about. Bringing about meaningful experiences requires that organisations renew themselves and set out to do something, but it also makes high demands in terms of reliability. The creation of meaningful experiences begins with focusing on the meaning of human experiences. What are they? What do they involve? Ten characteristics of meaningful experiences were presented in order to provide clarity about what should be brought about. These characteristics are at present being tested in empirical se�ings. We have seen that meaningful experiences take place in one or more se�ings. Organisations will need to create a single environment or an entire portfolio of se�ings in physical and/or virtual space. These se�ings should be connected with each other to ensure a ‘flow’ in the giving of meaning. One environment serves to inform people of the experience concept and to lead to the ultimate se�ing where the climax of the experience takes place. We have presented principles with which se�ings in the physical and the virtual world must comply in order to ensure that a desired meaningful experience can come about. In addition, we have discussed the principles and the building blocks for experience co-creation. We have indicated that

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co-creation can only be successful if the customer and his or her values form the focus and a structured approach is followed, in which the customer functions as co-creator. The concept of the experience economy is still in the pre-theory stage and lacks empirical evidence. The research we conduct at the University of Amsterdam aims at adding to theory from an integrative human perspective and by interpretative concept development we are now in the process of studying cases and developing propositions to be tested in practice. In this way we aim to contribute to both theory development and the design and development of innovative experience practices.

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References Alexander, C. 1979. The Timeless Way of Building. Oxford University Press. New York. Boswijk. A., Thijssen, J.P.T. & Peelen, E. 2005. A New Perspective on the Experience Economy: Meaningful Experiences. Pearson Education. Amsterdam. Bruyn, M. de & Bruyn, R. de 1999. Creativiteit, alfa-omega, visievorm: van spelregels tot newstream management. Creatief Atelier Windekind. Antwerpen. Cooper, R.G. 1987. New products: what separates winners from losers? Journal of Production Innovation Management, 4 (3), 169-184. Csikszentmihalyi, M. 1990. Flow. The Psychology of Optimal Experience. Harper Perennial. New York. Davis, S. & Meyer, C. 1998. Blur. The Speed of Change in the Connected World. Addison-Wesley Books. Massachuse�s. Dewey, J. 1938. Experience and Education. Touchstone. New York. Keleman, S. 1974. Living your Dying. Center Press. Berkeley, CA. Laing, R.D. 1967. The Politics of Experience. Penguin Books Ltd. Harmondsworth. Pine, B.J. & Gilmore J.H. 1999. The Experience Economy, Work is Theatre and Every Business a Stage. Harvard Business School Press. Boston. Prahalad, C.K. & Ramaswamy, V. (2004). The Future of Competition. Co-creating unique value with customers. Harvard Business School Press. Boston. Ri�in, J. 2000. The Age of Access. The New Culture of Hypercapitalism where all of Life is a Paid-for Experience. Penguin Putman Inc. New York. Snel, A. 2005. Dissertation on Experience Economy (forthcoming). University of Amsterdam. Thijssen, J.P.T., Peelen, E. and Bink, S. 2006. Validating Experience Characteristics and Developing an Experience Index, European Centre for the Experience Economy. University of Amsterdam.

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E

Enlightening Christmas Experience - Reflections on the Experience Pyramid Mika Kylänen © Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry [email protected]

The Guiding Light

Christmas. The nature of Christmas is complex. The aim of the article is to explain what makes the Christmas experience, why does Christmas time appeal to us Westerners and how the meaning of Christmas celebration can be processed. Christmas experience and the nature of this certain time of the year are being analyzed in the light of Experience Pyramid1, the model introduced in Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry and created by Sanna Tarssanen and Mika Kylänen. The article follows through mainly the philosophical and value-based discussions that surround the holiday season in the Western countries. The findings made by the writer refer to Christmas as a phenomenon and its social and cultural consequences. Further comments

The name of the model has been changed for illustrating its logic more properly. Instead of the term triangle that refers usually to the relationship between three corners or angles, the authors wish to highlight the presence of six experiential elements on different levels of guest’s experience, and the progress of one’s experience. Therefore the term Experience Pyramid can be seen as more appropriate one. 1

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to the commercial side of Christmas, namely the products, theme parks and business logic that well from the message of Christmas time are not in the focus. However, some of the conclusive notions can be informative when taking the discussion to business level.

Experience Pyramid The Experience Economy or Industry has engaged us deeper into conversation about productization of culture, places, actions and history. Experiences are a�ached to almost any business and many events. Even teaching, learning, eating and meeting is expected to be experiential. Actually, more or less, our daily lives should offer us possibilities to face experiential moments. In the Lapland Centre of Expertise for the Experience Industry an experience is defined as a multi-sensory, positive and comprehensive emotional experience that can lead to personal change of a subject person (LCEEI 2005). Thus, when talking about experiences I mean something more thorough and influential. The feature of change is also acknowledged by Albert Boswijk, Thomas Thijssen and Ed Peelen (2006, in this collection). They understand experience as a continuous interactive process of doing and undergoing, of action and reflection, from cause to consequence, that provides both meaning to the individual in several contexts of one’s life and change in the perspective on self and/ or the surrounding world. In German there is a different word for ‘erlebnis’ and ‘erfahrung’ as well as in Finnish (‘elämys’ - ‘kokemus’) and Swedish (‘upplevelse’ - ‘erfarenhet’). However, in English experience is used in three contexts; as a meaningful and unique feeling, as an accumulative, gained experience and as a ‘mere’ situation or encounter one has gone through. This is why the discussion of experiences is a bit complicated among different cultures and contexts.

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Maybe it also affects how o�en the term experience is being used. This over-experientializing, where routines must be experiential time a�er time and media boost our senses and sensing with different kinds of doses, is quite problematic. It affects the usage of the word experience, and especially the meaning of it. Can tooth paste offer you an experience? How is it different from one experienced by visiting in a theme park or one gained by a beautiful view or a silent forest spiced up with a specialized guide telling about the history of the region? What about an enthusiastic and engaging video game - or winning art exhibition? What is the place of Christmas in this se�ing? In the LCEEI, there has been created a model, Experience Pyramid, for understanding experiences and for separating a strong, meaningful experience from another ‘mere experience’ (see also Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005). The article tries to conceptualize and analyze the nature of Christmas eager to understand why Christmas appeals to people in especially Western culture.

Change

Mental level

Experience Learning

Emotional level Intellectual level

Sense perception

Physical level

Interest Individuality Authenticity

Story

Multi-sensory perception

Motivational level Contrast

Interaction

Figure 1. Experience Pyramid (Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005.)

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The model is a certain kind of ideal type and it represents the ‘perfect product’ in which every element of the experience is reflected on all levels. It is an explicit tool for finding critical points or deficiencies in the product and therefore discovering ways to develop it. The experience product is examined from two perspectives: on the level of the product’s specific elements and on that of a person’s experience and how it is constructed. In the lower corner of the figure, the influential factors of the client’s experience are described (see Komppula & Boxberg 2002, 30-31; Per�ula 2004). Although a strongly emotional experience is impossible to guarantee with a rock-hard certainty to all parties, elements may nevertheless be included in the product through which a meaningful experience can likely be brought about. With these elements, fulfilment of meaningful experience-related criteria is ensured—the product is ’experientialized’. This means creation of experiential se�ings and enabling them. The six elements must be present in all five stages of the product from marketing to actual undergoing it, and in post-marketing as well. (See also Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005.) I won’t be analyzing directly Christmas-oriented tourism products, but Christmas as a whole, as a specific timebound happening in Westerners’ lives. I simply test the model in order to understand the nature of Christmas. I will also comment and relate my article to other articles of the collection. A�er understanding the inner meaning of Christmas, it is possible to realize what kind of concept would work when Christmas-orientation is put into practice in business.

Christmas in the Light of the Experience Pyramid Elements forming the Experience Individuality is the first of these elements. Individuality means superiority and uniqueness: there is no other similar

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thing. Individuality is also seen as a close, personal relationship and flexibility in adjusting the situation according to one’s own needs and wants. Thus, in the case of a group, there is a possibility for each participant to get what one wants in terms of the challenge of the activities and information offered among other things. (Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005.) Christmas is interestingly at the same time a very personal and collective event. As Juha Per�ula (2006, in this collection) describes the behaviour of his neighbours, the symbols used for representing Christmas time are very conventional. At the same time most Westerners have a certain, personal relationship to Christmas. Christmas is also tied to a certain time, to the end of the year which explains partly the uniqueness of it. Therefore it can be seen as an individual experience. But individuality of the experience is also based on the cultural heritage within the human psyche (see Jung 2002, 4; Per�ula 2006, in this collection). Researcher Seija Tuulentie (2004; see also Keisu 2001) notices that experiences are not only subjective but cultural and learned. Monika Lüthje’s (2005) findings in her recently published dissertation also show that experiences are both personal and cultural. Christmas touches so many people at the same time that in addition to individual experience Christmas time is experienced collectively. In the case of Christmas it is, however, quite hard to imagine that people would know by their heredity how to spend their Christmas time or what to do to their window glasses or green fir tree. I would prefer the explanation that Christmas time is spent together with other people and therefore it is enough that someone of the group knows the conventional way of spending Christmas time. Or as a li�le child one has learned how to manage. Although one would spend the holiday alone, s/he would remember how it was done before. And if not remembered, the person would receive symbolic clues for doing that. Christmas as an example of emotional experience shows that the basis of the

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impact lies in collectiveness – being like the others, like a human (see Per�ula 2005, 120-133; 2006, in this collection). For experiential hints authentic or credible symbols and pa�erns are needed (Per�ula 2006, in this collection). Authenticity in this connection relates to the credibility. The authentic or credible reflects to the actually existent culture, traditions, history, items or ways of action that refer to the issue in question. (See Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005.) Authenticity doesn’t have to be defined in the light of time passed; also contemporary features can be authentic (Lavia 2006, in this collection). Finnish image researcher, professor of communication Erkki Karvonen (2004, 74) suggests that acceptable reality includes both natural and human products; however, in the la�er case clarification about the premises is needed more o�en. Christmas is full of different symbols, clothing, habits, traditions and formalities. Whether talking about Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, ending of year or just comfortable time of togetherness there are clear conventions that symbolize the situation and remind ourselves and the others from a certain time of year. Christmas conventions are in constant change, and new ways of celebrating are being introduced year a�er year, and the older ones are being challenged. A culture is created by its definition and by the definer. Or in other words; the poet and the myth should not be separated (Laestadius 1994; see Ylimartimo 2006, in this collection). Therefore cultures are invented and reinvented constantly. There is no stable, genuine culture that exists naturally, regardless of history, but cultures as well as cultural processes are dynamic and continuously changing. And also the process of definition is endless. A culture is not more genuine or authentic at certain point of time than another. Cultures keep absorbing outer influences as part of themselves all the time. A traditional dance performed for tourists is not less genuine than a dance performed a hundred years

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ago for local audience because the dance has absorbed influences from different decades and cultures and still keeps doing that (Tarssanen 2004). The universal ‘genuine’ and ‘real’ does not exist: rather, this is always a question of some authority’s version as defined of what tradition is and from whose perspective it is identified as such. (Bruner 1994.) However, authenticity is understood as a visual perception too, and sometimes a reproduction is considered as more real than the original one (Eco 1986; Baudrillard 1988; see also Pretes 2006, in this collection). B. Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore (2003) frame authenticity – being real – from two perspectives leaning on William Shakespeare. First, it is about the personal relationship: it is true to one’s own self. Secondly, authenticity is measured in what you say you are to others. Authenticity thus includes features of morality and ethics. But mostly, being credible is enough in terms of genuineness. As Sanna Tarssanen and Mika Kylänen (2005) argue, the item presented is genuine if the receiver sees it as such, i.e. if it resembles enough his/ her perception of the authentic culture or performance. When talking about cultural products, for being authentic the products should be based on the culture of its implementers so that they consider it as a natural part of their own identity. Also cultural ethics pointof-view is considered. An ethical product does not offend ethnic or other cultural communities or seek to gain benefit from them at their expense. The authenticity in Christmas is built with decorations, colours, gi�s, Santa Claus and the elves, habits like going to the Christmas church, Christmas sauna, certain food that is mainly offered only on Christmas time, togetherness and calming down. Somewhere, as in Rovaniemi’s case, renowned part of Christmas is tourism. Also religious features of different forms are common all over the world. For understanding different viewpoints of authenticity it is important to proportion the discussion into its context.

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The framework holds several contrary perspectives, and – most interesting of all – the crisis of representation is present in them too. The perspective is created by its context and by its beholder. As examples of the opposite views I will mention social constructionism and phenomenology (see e.g. Schwandt 2003, 197-200; Karvonen 2004). The debate on representation and authenticity has come to focal point again. From the days of Plato, who differentiated eikon and simulacrum, authenticity and wider put, the creation of cultural (pseudo-)reality has been of great interest of researchers (e.g. Boorstin 1962; Debord 1967; Eco 1985; Baudrillard 1988). The representation is in crisis; eye or mouth of the beholder not only reflects the world out there, but constitutes the social reality (Moisander & Valtonen 2006, forthcoming). As a conclusion, there is not one correct answer to this debate. For concrete findings that are adaptable in the society of our days and mutual understanding of both parties a more neutral discourse is needed (Karvonen 2004). This crisis of representation sets questions towards Christmas conventions. Following the logic presented above, Christmas decorations should be made of traditional materials not light cables, electric devices and plastic. Also Christmas tree is a huge problem, or is it? As Sisko Ylimartimo’s (2006, in this collection) analysis on the Christmas time in the Moominvalley shows, dressing a fir tree is up to you and your preferences. As a whole, Christmas conventions are set by some authority, in this case the hemulen. However, the Moomins eventually realize that Christmas is not about limitations and chaos, but about beautiful things, precious items, personal and collective joy, aesthetics and values. The story of an event is closely linked with the authenticity. A genuine story links the experience with reality and gives the content and a social meaning for it. Stories and tales are means of socialization: by listening tales children learn that good beats bad, what is acceptable and what is

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not. Story binds together all the elements of experience and gives meaning and significance to the whole. (Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005.) Christmas bo�les up significant profound structures and meanings. In addition to individuality and authenticity, remarkable part of the experientialism of Christmas lies in story. Before highlighting the meaning, story, behind Christmas the context has to be cleared first. The meaning of Christmas varies from short term to long term. Some are interested in gi�s – having and giving – as others see Christmas time as more profound and symbolic period with family values, being present, inner growth, accepting each other, magic, myths and mysticism, learning to be a good boy or a girl and living in another way for some time. Christmas can be an important phase of being more human (Per�ula 2006, in this collection). Stories are understandable forms of abstract sights, ideas and meanings. The purpose of an appealing story is paralleled by the sight-marker relationship (see MacCannell 1989; Pretes 2006, in this collection). The power of a good, appealing story can be proportioned when talking about the Santa Claus. Without the story making Santa Claus as the symbol of good will, Christmas, happiness and gi�s he would be nothing but a weird man wearing red clothes and a fake beard (Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005). As Michael Pretes (1994; 2006, in this collection) states, Santa Claus becomes even stronger and influential when anchored to Lapland, Finland – a certain, concrete place of natural magic. A lot of the resonance of the great Christmas story is based on history. Santa Claus as well as the diverse figures, habits and beliefs repeat, or rather represent, ancient tales and pa�erns. Santa Claus used to be a horn-headed goat with a grey fur and a wooden stick (see Lavia 2006, in this collection). The goat (caper, capra) metaphor is not a coincidence. Goat has for ages been a symbol of prosperity, and singing and dancing have been usual ways of respect and gratifica-

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tion. In Finland, Christmas sauna is a must! And it has been for generations; festivity is promoted through cleaning and tidying oneself up. This points to a catharsis, sort of. On the contrary, sacrificing and then decorating a young, maidenly and innocent fir tree refers to the rite of fertility from the ancient times regardless of culture sphere. Also birth (light) and death (darkness) are a�ached to this ritual as Christmas brings the light in the middle of darkness. Bringing gi�s connects strangeness and familiarity. Although the voice of the Santa Claus reminds from someone, as gi�s are usually given by a person from one’s own family, the mask and unexplainable aura of thousands of Christmas Eves make the situation once in a life time (or year) kind. (Peltonen 2005.) Probably the a�ractiveness of Christmas is in nostalgia for childhood and in the chance given to continue the ancient tradition of mankind. (Lavia 2006, in this collection.) The story is like an umbrella term for the whole. On the threshold of Christmas people ask: “Why to celebrate Christmas, why to take part in all this fussing?” The story – when presented to them – gives an answer that wells from the history and prehistory. The story also includes sub-stories based on both fact and fiction that serve as positive cues. It is important to harmonise the whole and the sub-stories whereas all negative cues that would take the true message of Christmas on to a false track (see Pine & Gilmore 1999, 46-55). The story strengthens the touch of authenticity. The reasons for going to church in Christmas are deeper than in plain conventions, i.e. just used to do. Christmas church is an important cue in celebrating Christmas, in relaxation; it is about pu�ing everyday worries aside and finding collective spirit. It is important to bind the various elements of the whole together with a uniform theme by which the experience becomes compact and compelling. Multi-sensory character means that the product should be capable of being experienced with as many of the senses

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as possible. It should be visually influential, appealing to the senses by odour and aroma, as well as audible and capable of being tasted and recognized. All sensory stimuli should naturally be in mutual harmony and strengthen, on their part, the desired impression and theme. (Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005.) Christmas experience has a multi-sensory character. Christmas carols, communal cha�er, laugh and joy as well as restful silence appeal to one’s hearing. Christmas dining table with several piquant and more familiar tastes sensitizes you. Christmas symbols, colours and decorations in addition to the game of the dark and the light a�aches to your sense of sight everywhere you go. One’s nose gets wrinkled as a consequence of stearin, food, spices, pines of the fir tree, sauna and fire(place) among others. Sense of touch is put to work for instance by being close one another, sensing the game of the coldness and the warmth and so�, cosy slippers one wears. The fi�h element of Christmas experience is contrast. It refers to difference from the perspective of the beholder. The event must differ from the receiver’s everyday life and routines for being experiential. (See Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005.) The contrast of Christmas is based firstly on time. The shimmer of Christmas is that it is limited to one and a half months tops: from November’s Christmas Parties with your friends or colleagues to Twel�h Day (or Epiphany) a�er the New Year. In religious context Christmas time is outlined with Advents and different colours. In Russia, Christmas celebration is four-folded because of the different views of Gregorian calendar and Julian calendar. In 1917, during the Russian revolution the Gregorian calendar was introduced. However, Russian Orthodox Church held to Julian calendar that was 13 days behind the Gregorian chronology. So, the Russians’ Christmas time includes 25th of December (Western Christmas), 1st of January (secular New Year), 7th of January (Orthodox Christmas) and 14th of January (New

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Year according to Julian calendar). Although some people would like Christmas to last longer or even be everlasting, the trick and the magic would eventually vanish (see also Per�ula 2006, in this collection). Also Santa Claus as a year round target of hundreds of thousands of tourists may have an effect that turns against itself if it is not appropriately taken care of. The contrast of Christmas is built secondly on exceptional way of action, habits differing from the normal. Inside Christmas time there are several “sub-contrasts” as I highlighted earlier; dark-light, fussing-calming down, hullabaloo-silence, giving-having and exceptional food to mention but a few (see also Per�ula 2006, in this collection). The experience of something new and exceptional enables the view of oneself from another perspective—as a ‘second person’ in a different sort of environment, which frees one to see and feel in a different way, free from the limitations and customary habits of daily life. This play with different identities, places and spaces is essential. (Jokinen & Veijola 1990, Jokinen 1991, 133-134, Sepänmaa 1998, 19.) After all, mostly Christmas is considered as holiday. Yet, in the case of Christmas one may feel free from the limitations of everyday life but Christmas time includes expectations of its own, namely strict conventions as discussed earlier. If buying gi�s, decorating the Christmas tree and making traditional food just do not feel right, it causes social and cultural pressure and influences the experience as a whole. The last element that illustrates the experientialism of Christmas is interaction. Interaction represents successful communication within the situation; the social relations between people and between the people and the event. A critical point of experience is the awareness of the fact that the experience is generally accepted and appreciated, thereby raising the participant’s social status or linking him/ her more closely with a certain group or community. The feeling of community is linked as an essential feature with interac-

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tion: something is experienced together as part of a collective, group or family. (See Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005.) Per�ula (2006, in this collection) makes an important notion on the individual-collective relationship concerning experientialism. He comprehensively states that too o�en and too loosely individual or personal is linked together with emotional. Similarly, rational and general refer to collective, i.e. common to us humans. Per�ula turns the relationship upside-down: emotional side in experiences links us to others showing how similar we all are, and our uniqueness comes from the rational understanding. As a conclusion, it can be said that this new understanding on the emotional confirms the socialization aspect of Christmas experience. This throws us back to interaction; collective meanings and understanding are built in dialogue with the others, and the interaction can be verbal and non-verbal, symbolic. Through interaction people realize what is worth pursuing and what is not. Jungian perspective introduces common human psychical potentiality, the collective unconscious, that makes people psychologically alike (see Per�ula 2006, in this collection). Both the overall symbols and collective actions and perceptions awake the “Christmas-me” in ourselves that is at sleep, although in readiness. However, we must admit that separating emotional and rational – the collectiveness from individuality – is not an easy task to do. Although being personal meaningful experience is usually given impetus by collective sharing. One can not experience for another person, no ma�er how much empathy for him/ her! Actually, we absorb both situated and generalized knowledge, as Jacquelin Burgess (1985) writes. Situated knowledge refers to individually experienced and generalized knowledge means the natural, existing social order.

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Levels of Christmas Experience By means of the vertical axis of the Experience Pyramid model, the experience is made up of five levels. The levels emphasize the progress of the experience from impulse via interest to actual undergoing the same and the conscious processing of an emotionally rich, meaningful experience leading to mental change (cf. Aho, 2001, 35-36; Boswijk et al. 2006, in this collection). In a thorough and comprehensive experience all basic elements are involved on each level: motivational, physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual (Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005). First is the motivation level. This refers to awakening the interest of celebrating Christmas in the first place. (See Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005.) At the level of motivation, personal expectations towards Christmas are created with respect to the actual event. The person finds the desire and readiness to be part of it and to experience it. Sometimes we awake by leafing through the calendar or sometimes it is in our guts and we don’t even need any intentional pushing. Also children, the media, department stores or other influential channels keep reminding us of the certain time of year. For being a ideal experience, Christmas-oriented impetus with multi-sensory, individual, credible, that encourages to interaction. Contrast as an element comes into question from two perspectives. On the one hand the message must differ from the others for reaching the target, namely the mind of the receiver, on the rambling field of multi-faceted messages. So, it has to reflect something new, something that is different from the ordinary. On the second hand the message must include some traits that remind the receiver from Christmas. A�er all, marketing is based on connecting the traits of the product to engrams that have a�ached to one’s mind earlier. Ge�ing motivated to Christmas celebration is not supposedly hard because it is quite natural part of our Westerners’

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lives. The hardest part is to get motivated of an optimized Christmas time where ambitions are more in long term teleology than in short term actions. Next is the physical level, the actual Christmas time celebration. On this level, the person experiences one’s environment through the senses and the situation is received, tried, recognized, acknowledged and brought into consciousness first-hand (LaSalle & Bri�on 2003, 9). By means of the physical senses, we realize where we are, what’s happening and what we’re doing. On the physical level, a good product ensures a pleasant and safe experience: it isn’t too cold or too hot, one isn’t hungry or thirsty, and it is unnecessary to worry about lavatory needs—not to mention physical danger (Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005). In terms of Christmas celebration this refers to prepared surroundings and everything being set for the festivity. Third is the rational level. On this level, we process the sensory stimuli provided by the environment and act in accordance with the same. We learn, think, apply knowledge and form opinions. (Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005.) On the rational level, we decide if we’re satisfied with our Christmas celebrating or not (see LaSalle & Bri�on 2003, 9). The person processes the things done and undergone and realizes the clue of Christmas. One learns the inner structure and contents of Christmas by obtaining new information, either consciously or unconsciously. Fourth is the emotional level, i.e. undergoing the actual meaningful experience. Emotional reactions on the part of individuals are difficult to predict and control. If all basic elements of Christmas experience are appropriately taken into account and the physical and rational levels both function, it’s quite likely that the person will experience a positive emotional response (cf. Per�ula 2004): joy, excitement, contentment, surprise, the pleasure of achievement and learning new skills, a sense of triumph, affection—something of the

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sort which a person reacts to as significant. (See Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005.) Finally, as the highest phase Christmas appeals to one’s mental level. A positive and powerful emotional reaction to meaningful experience may lead to an experience of personal change, which brings about fairly permanent modifications to the subject’s physical being, state of mind or lifestyle (Aho 2001, 35; see also Boswijk et al. 2006, in this collection). In this respect, the individual feels that s/he has changed as a human being and embraced, either as part of his/ her own personhood or world-view, something new and advanced as well. Through a meaningful experience, one can adopt a new hobby, way of thinking or find new resources within oneself. (See Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005.) Christmas can change the views of the person (see Per�ula 2006, in this collection). Christmas can make people understand that the good will and other profound messages do not have to be tied strictly to Christmas time only. It is important to remain as such also a�erwards; for instance children – how could they be good the whole year, not only the last month of it. Why entrepreneurs who produce and reproduce Christmas can not fully express the same message during their business work? Boswijk, Thijssen and Peelen (2006, in this collection) in their authoritative article see the creation of experience a bit differently. They skip the motivational level totally. From their point-of-view, creation of meaning starts from perception through the senses. Then the process continues to emotions that lead to an experience, ‘Erlebnis’. This Erlebnis adds to ‘Erfahrung’ – a meaningful experience – and subsequently to ‘meaning’. Erlebnis can be defined as a subset of Erfahrung. Obviously, there has to be some sensing done before ge�ing motivated but in Experience Pyramid motivational level refers to impetus of the process – why to take part in to this whether a certain product or a more abstract “event”,

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like Christmas. Physical level means the concrete doing, undergoing and action. Experience Pyramid goes along with their process of creation of meaning. The viewpoint where erlebnis acts as a basis for erfahrung is truly welcome to the discussion on the experience economy (see Boswijk et al. 2006, in this collection). Experience Pyramid emphasizes the same relationship using meaningful experience (emotional level) as the path towards personal change (spiritual level).

Conclusive Notions Children are the main target group of Christmas celebration but also adults have a chance to get together, to calm down and to live in another way for a specific time. Christmas appeals to people. As this article and the whole collection illustrates Christmas is full of experiential elements. Individuality, authenticity, story, multi-sensory character, contrast and interaction are all present in Christmas time. These elements of the Experience Pyramid help to understand the meaning of Christmas. Although Christmas is full of conventions, it is experienced personally. However, collectiveness is one of the main motives of Christmas celebration. Christmas conceals several deep structures. When these profound meanings are being made explicit it gives new viewpoints and contents to Christmas products too. When staging Christmas experiences in business way it is important to understand the meaning of Christmas. Although the Santa Claus is seen, named and backgrounded differently among different cultures the values and the way to see the world and us, humans, fits into same frame. Realization of the subjectivity of Christmas experience is important. This speaks for accurate target group specification; what is experiential to one may not offer enough contrast

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and may not be credible to another. All in all, “Christmas tourist” is not a segment. Christmas tourism is neither onefolded but diverse phenomenon. This article suggests the elements of the Experience Pyramid for understanding the nature of Christmas – and finally, clarifying the experiential contents of Christmas-oriented products. For bringing about meaningful experiences that meet the needs, wants and values of the chosen target group the Experience Pyramid should be adopted vertically too. The process how a person’s experience proceeds from motivational level to spiritual level should be reflected on one’s own product. Worth of notion is that not always, maybe even rarely, this subjective Christmas experience can be inquired by asking directly from the customer him/ herself. Quite interesting in the debate about commercialism of Christmas is that Santa Claus as an immaterial figure is the advocate messenger, the last Mohican, of non-commercial world. When producing cultural or historical a�ractions and traditional or renowned persons with a story it is important to remember that every reproduction we form and see changes our perception of the original (see Bruner 1994; Karvonen 2004; Tarssanen & Kylänen 2005). Thus a cultural performance is a copy in relation to past but authentic and real part of (post)modern reality (Bruner 1994). However, the producers of Christmas and merchandisers of Christmas products have an utmost responsibility on the message sent. Supply gives birth to demand. What is our story? How do we see the nature of Christmas? What kind of values, if any, do we want to a�ach to Christmas time? Silence, calming down, nature and human going hand in hand, nostalgia, continuation of ancient traditions, local habits, love, giving and sharing, mysticism, joy, therapeutics, helping one another, charity, good will, creativity, playfulness and well-being are good options. But before totally dooming construction of regional prosperity, international

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business networking, gaining of personal and entrepreneur wealth and exploitation of traditions the producers and merchandisers should be given a chance to tell about their premises and objectives. We must realize that new ways of celebrating are introduced every year. This does not influence only Christmas, but widely the packaging of culture. Discussion on authenticity – the continuous ba�le of eikon and simulacrum – has to be kept wide open, topical. It is important to arrange round-table discussions between researchers, entrepreneurs and regional developers about the formulation of the message, sending process and principles as well as the contents. As this article and the whole collection, Articles on Experiences 3, show categorizing Christmas as a phenomenon, social and cultural environment and business branch is not possible without different – o�en opposite – point-of-views simultaneously.

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